Possumhaw: A man and his dreams

Some days pass by so fast you don’t even see them, but come Saturday the pace slows down around here. Saturdays start off quiet and slow, allowing time to catch up. Then there’s strong coffee followed by a bowl of oatmeal topped with honey, golden nectar, a gracious gift.

Possumhaw: Miracle in the Prairie

It all started about three days before. The rains were torrential and the lake was so full that most of the center stumps were submerged.

“Sam, I think the spillway is dammed up. The water is high.”

After work Sam took the gator to the spillway and sure enough a beaver had dammed the flow again. In drizzling rain Sam shoveled out the dam and checked the beaver trap. No beaver.

“Did you see Leah?” I asked.

Possumhaw: Cool Cats for sale

Hopping over the worm on the asphalt took me back to my childhood when rains brought out red wigglers. I remember hopscotching across sidewalks trying to avoid stepping on icky worms.

Possumhaw: The flick of a hand

Jack, the deaf cat, knowing sign language, responds to the universal sign of flicking your hand. “Come on,” I flick my hand; he comes.

Possumhaw: Prairie, wild and untamed

I often wonder how different life would be in the city. I wonder if city dwellers contend with coyotes, fox, armadillos, owls, raccoons and beaver; possibly a snake or two.

Possumhaw: Christmas tree recycling

Puffy little dark-eyed juncos are popping in and out of the leftover Christmas tree. The same Christmas tree we bought at Marvin’s the day after Thanksgiving. A couple of years back we decided we were no longer able or nimble enough to trek hill and dell to secure the tallest and finest cedar tree in the Prairie.

Possumhaw: Poke salad Annie

I noticed them right off. There on the roadside near the ditch were big, leafy greens. Once or twice I saw people picking them. I was reminded of the time I saw folks picking greens and carefully putting them in a cloth sack. I asked what they were.

“Fiddleheads,” they said.

Possumhaw: When loss is a good thing

The telescope stands poised at the window, aimed at the deer feeder. At dawn and twilight a Bardwell can be seen standing with eye pressed to the scope, but on this morning I swung the scope toward the lake. A flock of geese had descended and there was Leah, the domestic duck, amongst them.

Possumhaw: Just do your best

“Can you take care of the chickens?” Carolyn asked. “It’s just overnight.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding. I don’t know anything about chickens.”

“All you have to do is put them in the chicken house. Open the door and they’ll go in.”

“But what if they don’t?” I asked.

“They will,” she explained. “Haven’t you ever heard ‘going to bed with the chickens?'”

Possumhaw: Can you imagine it?

Tonight you may be sitting in a bar or alone in a hotel room, you may be confined to a hospital bed or you may be kneeling at a Communion altar. You may be with family or only dreaming of a family far away, wherever you are right now the Christmas Eve story is for you.

Possumhaw: A brave Christmas story

Once at MUW I shared my fear with Professor David Smith that I was not brave. Looking up from his desk with horn-rimmed glasses on the tip of his nose and disheveled graying hair on his head he said, “Bravery is not bravado. It’s being afraid and doing it anyway.”

Possumhaw: Rest for the preacher man

The cabin was barely finished when the need arose. The preacher man was exhausted and full of sorrows. “Come to the quiet,” I offered.

Possumhaw: A mountain out of a molehill

Down by the Prairie ponds sits a tiny cabin. For the last few years it has been the receptacle of old lawn chairs, extra fishing poles, a boogie board, a torn fishing net, an assortment of tackle, a half-used bag of fish food and various and sundry items.

Possumhaw: Not worth a dam

I know I’m going to hear from the beaver lady, but if she could have seen Sam’s face, she would have understood. Six years ago

Possumhaw: Tucking it all in

Nighttime temperatures dropped into the 30s and the first day of frost is precariously close.

Possumhaw: The best Sunday ever

At 90 years old, Ms. Fannie declared, “This is my best day at church yet!”

‘Tis the season for homecomings and that Sunday was homecoming at Shaeffer’s Chapel. People who have never been to Shaeffer’s Chapel come to the reunion, but Ms. Fannie Gerhart has never been anywhere else.

Possumhaw: Fall weekends in the Prairie

Sam started his list of “honey-dos” and was soon dangling on the roof of the greenhouse. “Stay right there,” I hollered; I ran to the house, leaving him hanging.

Ask Rufus: Not your typical morning joe

There is an ornamental shrub often used in our region for landscaping that is much more than just another ornamental. Its name is Ilex vomitoria, but it is better known as Yaupon Holly.

Possumhaw: Why leaves change colors

Outside the window it was raining leaves. From the kitchen window the leaves of the black cherry tree looked red, but up close they were the colors of leaping flames, red, yellow and orange. I gathered leaves and returned to the kitchen.

Possumhaw: Season of spiders

Hanging between the cedar post and the gardenia bush is the web of a garden spider.