I'd choose to look at 3 pears and a wasp over...

an entire warehouse of packaged products.

Nature photo of the day: the start of pear season and an intently interested visitor.

my mind wanders back 
to the age of four
where not too many memories
l i n g e r.
but there is a clear image of a 
grand pear tree
just outside the back door of my
big Grandma's two-bedroom home
that saw and heard seven children
being raised right between the thin walls 
where a one-handed man
(that's my big Grandpa)
was the ruler of the farm
besides the lingering smell of the porch
what I still see as I close my eyes are the pears
ripe and perfect
much like these
forty and two seasons apart
looking up into that enormous tree
watching wasps fly in and out
everyone searching for the best bites
and sharing the juicy sweet plunder
with the ones they love best.

- Cheryl M.

It’s Tuesday and we are in the city - for an entire week! To say it’s tiring would be an understatement, to say it’s exciting is just plain blasphemy.

Going from the homestead where we often see no more than ten people a day pass our home, often none at all… the city (shitty, as we often refer to it) offers up quite a different experience.

Instead of our regular 3-kilometer walk up to the top of the road to catch a bus, or hitchhike if the bus is full, being passed by about five cars and passing several cows grazing in the meadows, is incomparable to the journey of walking a similar three kilometers in the city.