It’s Thursday and I am watching the pendulum swing back and forth on the grandfather clock in my living room. A fire blazes in the fireplace, orange flames flickering, as the clock strikes 5 pm. The sky is gray outside, there’s a chill in the air, and it will be dark in less than thirty…

I have always been a big believer in dreams. Not the ones you have at night, though I appreciate the importance of those, but rather the ones you conjure up to get closer to your perceived ideal life. Now I use the word perceived intentionally because we all know that what we imagine might be…

While it is down to 37 degrees at night this week, the temperature during the day here in Ojai has been a lovely 65. We are working here for several days so I’ve had the benefit of enjoying blue skies and the quiet and peacefulness that prevails at the orange grove. Today, I walked around…

Mary Lancaster saw Jim Herman standing on the front porch of his house. He had a bag of groceries in his arms and she knew that he must have just returned from Wharton’s Market since the bag had a bright green W stamped on the front. She could also see that he still had the…

We are now up in Ojai at our orange grove. It’s going to be around 37 degrees tonight so we’ll be snuggled deep in our bed. Our main heater in the Airstream is on the fritz currently while we complete our massive electric upgrade; consequently, at the moment, we don’t have any extra heat besides…

Happy New Year, my friends. I am grateful to have made it yet another year among you and am also pleased to see 2021 come to a close. Of course, we don’t quite know what to expect in 2022, but I am hopeful we’ll all see some settling of this pandemic and forward movement back…

I am sitting here tonight trying to think of what to write. The truth is that I am looking forward to taking a bath and relaxing. My stomach hurts just a tiny bit and I want to get in bed and stretch out. I want to have a good long sleep tonight and to sleep…

My nephew Jim and his family are visiting friends in Uzbekistan. He just sent us some photos of what they saw today. Having never had a clue what life in Uzbekistan might look like, I thought I might share these photos just to give a glimpse of a country that many (I presume) have little…

I am sitting here trying to think of something to write about. I feel a bit depleted, uninspired, disinterested in producing one word of writing. I am up in my little office with all my books and photos and paintings surrounding me. I am listening to Gregorian chants in my headphones and am aware that…