Anacortes, WA

3 trips to Anacortes: once to the boat, once to the birth, once to welcome the babe.

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Country, Louisiana style

Pierre Part, LA

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Snowmen

With appreciation for the ever-brilliant foresight of Granny.

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Strawberry jam

It never would have happened without Laurie, but we did it: we managed to make and can eight jars of jam made with strawberries from the farmers’ market. I’ve been buying a flat a week for like a month; the strawberry ladies there love me.  But how I would’ve managed with two kids hanging on my legs I do not know, especially with our sort of wonky but good enough canning system (no rack, just put jar rings on the bottom of the pot and put a big jar in the middle to keep the little jars in place). It was fun, anyway, not bad for a first experience, and man, is that excess strawberry foam good.

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Knox Writers’ House

Late last fall, a few students from Knox College emailed Andy and I to ask if they could record us reading our poems. What? Sure, we said, and then arranged a small gathering of writer-friends, who stuffed themselves into our tiny front room, put themselves in front of a fancy mic, and read their work. It was actually the first time we’d done that, shared our work altogether aloud, and it felt great. More than great, really: it deepened our commitment to creating a reading and writing community for ourselves here. We were aglow.

These lovely-hearted young people recorded and chatted and told us about their adventures. The result of their efforts is The Knox Writers’ House, an incredibly ambitious project which I’m so happy to be a part of. You’ll hear plenty of amazing writers on the site, and interviews, too. Plus, there’s just something cool about a physical map. If you click on New Orleans, you can find us.

Happy listening!

 

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A little adventure

Looking for a bit of wilderness close to home, we went to the swamp. One snake, spiders the size of my palm, big black grasshoppers, crows, squirrels, many dragonflies, fish, an alligator: what we saw. Stayed about an hour, until the deer flies and the premonition that she’d soon be tired of walking and I’d be carrying two children down the trail chased us away.

So beautiful there, teeming with life, and a little dangerous, it feels to me. That is the natural world, down here — most places, I imagine.

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Great grandparents came to visit

So we took them to our favorite place.

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Mardi Gras

She was serious about it this year. He slept through the whole thing.

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The corn maze, or, welcome to October!



I’d always wanted to go to a corn maze. Somehow I lived in Iowa for three years without doing it. It was the best way to spend the first evening of October.

Stopped at Middendorf’s on the way back, just as the sun set. I wish I’d taken a picture of the swamp. The catfish was good, and the building full of all kinds of interesting details (cypress kneed coat racks, e.g.), but ultimately I think I like my fillets a bit thicker.

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Tourist in your own town

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