Blog

My brother and sister-in-law live on sixteen acres in gorgeous Northern California.  The closest town has a population of less than five thousand.  After once through town with its “hemp store”, I now take the scenic highway west -- two very narrow lanes of windy, hilly, tree-lined road.  As if ten miles weren’t far enough from civilization, my brother and SIL chose a place a mile off the road – across a narrow metal bridge with no side railing suspended over a twenty foot ravine with rocky creek bed below.  The bridge is just wide enough to accommodate a pick-up truck.  UPS drivers refuse to make deliveries and leave their parcels with neighbors.

We don’t get to visit often, but we email frequently.  I keep telling him he should write a column for one of the big city newspapers about the life of an urbanite transplanted in rural America.  He writes of “long-eared rats”(deer) invading his garden, shoot outs on main street between rival...

Certain foods bring back wonderful family memories of dinners.  Grandma Wulff always fixed “More” when I visited her at the farm.  The recipe calls for sautéed onions,  browned ground beef, cooked elbow pasta, corn, peas, chopped tomatoes and tomato sauce and spices all mixed together and then topped with cheese (or ketchup).  My brother and I called it “More” because we always wanted more.  Grandma also fixed “pull-apart” bread.  She made dough from scratch, let it rise, punch it down, let it rise again, took bits and roll them into balls, covered them with butter, cinnamon, chopped nuts and raisins and put them in a pan and let them rise again before baking.   We’d sit around the table talking as we pulled off hunks of gooey sweet bread.

My dad favored Grandma’s angel food cakes.  Mom loved her candied almonds. 

Whenever I packed our three children into the car and headed north to Oregon for a visit with...

We all have our favorite places in the world.  Home is number one.  Whenever Rick and I travel, we love seeing new places and meeting new people.  But within two to three weeks, we’re hankering for home, missing our own bed, living room, kitchen – and, of course, family.  Then, within a few weeks, we’re dreaming about the next place we’d like to explore. 

One place draws me back time after time:  Fort Bragg, California.  The Mendocino coastline of California is spectacular and draws people from all over the world.  Most tourists are familiar with Mendocino, a quaint Victorian lumbering town with its tall New England style steeple and rugged coast.  Ten miles north is my favorite northern California seacoast town, Fort Bragg.  (My character, Dynah from The Atonement Child, spends significant time there.) Rick and I have stayed numerous times at the Harbor Lite on the Noyo River.  Every room has a...

I’ve been thinking about all the pets I’ve had over the years – dogs and cats.  They become a part of the family.  We’ll have quite a menagerie when we get to Heaven.  The first family dog I remember is Dusty, a female German Shepherd who rode herd on me when I was preschool age.  (There will be a picture of the two of us in Her Daughter’s Dream in September.)  After Dusty came Bullet, named after Roy Rogers’ loyal canine companion.  Bullet saved me from a neighbor dog.  I have never seen such a fight like that, nor do I ever want to see another.  The other dog was larger, but Bullet was faster and smarter.  When he got the other dog by the throat, my dad had to make him let go.

Bullet lived to the ripe old age of sixteen.  Mom and Dad had him cremated.  They couldn’t seem to part with him.  They kept his ashes in a box with a bronze plaque on top.  He spent the next two decades on the bookshelf. ...