Hmmmm, maybe next year!?
A few of you have written me to ask whether I’ll still be involved in rehabbing wild babies. Basically, the numbers I was wanting to care for, and the very steep learning curve involved in it all, were too much for me this summer. I intend to keep learning and studying, and next baby season, hopefully step forward again in a smaller, non-leadership capacity. Thank you so much for your support and concern. Such a fine community we have here!
In the brief but precious time that I spent with my eight baby skunks, before handing them off to a fellow rehabber so I could take a short trip to the coast, they showed me a few things. Nature is like that, always showing you things. Read the rest of this entry »
Dian, one of our kindred spirits, sent me this message and I wanted to pass it on to you. Carla Jo was facing breast cancer, choosing to receive no treatment and focus on the time she had left. A brave soul, with wings now…
“I was thinking about Carla Jo tonight and thought I’d check her site and see how she was doing. Sadly it looks as if she passed May 11th. I found this poem on her site and thought it was quite beautiful. Funny I feel as if I lost a friend and we never met I just read her story as a member of this community. Sounds as if she was a wonderful person.” Read the rest of this entry »
Carter's best hat
There came a day near the end of May when I grabbed up my raccoon kits—Earnest, Faith, and Frank—and set off to make a memory. They fit easily into my small backpack, and rode there with their faces out and their eyes big.
All were in robust health, with fat tummies and glossy fur. They had come such a long way in only two weeks. So far, in fact, that they had no more need for me. It was time to take them back to Wildcare, the rehab sanctuary, where they would be joined by another litter to make up their “clan.” In the large outside cages with pools, stumps, and makeshift dens, this clan would have their time of “wilding up.”
Then, Susan Davis would select the place for their release—somewhere with woods, water, and privacy. Together, the little clan would explore the glory of a wild life, as they were born to.
But not yet. Not before I took them off in search of one last, grand memory. Spring had done her job of filling in the bare winter canopy. Now the forest out my back door had returned to the mysterious, compelling world of deep, deep shade and leaf-bottomed, meandering streams. Read the rest of this entry »
These were the words of the flight attendant as we all prepared to disembark the plane following an uneventful flight to the coast. I’ve taken a week away to come visit my mother on the north coast of California. And, frankly, I thought it was a horrid choice of words. The last thing in the world I need are more voices urging me to be productive. Now even the fight attendants are telling us to go forth and produce…produce!!
Here are some words I would rather hear from flight attendants, teachers, parents, media outlets, magazines, doctors, and priests:
Don’t you feel better already? Go ahead. Have some fine, nonproductive time. Don’t know how? Just watch your animal companions…
Just to clear up some confusion, the book circle price is $60 TOTAL, including the phone chats and the reading circle work. We can use more of you! Please join us! (See post below for more details…! We start June 22nd!)
This missive is about raising a stink. It is a prologue to the post I am going to write LATER about the eight infant skunks who came into my life last week, and have kept me way too busy to do such things as blog, for goodness sake! So, as a reflective intro to the writings soon to come, I am posting a comment I just got from our sister Cindy about raising a stink of another kind.
Wise women do not suffer fools lightly, and are inclined to raise a stink when the situation seems to warrant it. Cindy’s words rung a bell with me, and she asks us to consider if “bad” qualities actually might be better reframed in midlife as gifts. That is, is raising stinks of various kinds unseemly, or is it a virtue? Cindy would like to know…
You are all an inspiration, and I mean that with all my heart. I take away little nuggets of wit and wisdom every time I visit here. Now let me ask you this…..
Yesterday my husband referred to me as “cantankerous”. He said this is his usual kidding way (I think), but I wondered this time… Read the rest of this entry »
I write books and tell stories. But more important, I'm still an awestruck child when it comes to animals, nature, and spirit. I love to ponder the place where these intersect. In my experience, that place is holy ground, healing ground. Thank you for spending some moments here. I hope you'll return again and again.
