I awoke to the sound of someone nailing railroad spikes into the side of our house. Then, the mystery handyman switched to power tools and fired up a jackhammer and started on our cedar siding. The racket was intense, and the fact that this was all going down before morning coffee made me especially foggy headed.
Stuffing my feet into my slippers, I hurried downstairs and crept quietly out the patio door. I craned my neck around the house corner, my ears ringing from the racket, and there he was in all his black-and-white glory. Close up, pileated woodpeckers are huge. I call them pterodactyls. This fellow visits us a lot in the winter, defying his local nickname of “ghost bird.” We see this magnificent guy several times a week at our feeders. I’ve just never found him clinging to our house wall, doing exterior remodeling not seven feet from my nose. 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. 
