The City Mouse in the Country

  Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. Rachel Carson     This past week or so, I've been stuck for a topic.  Not much has really happened as I've dealt mainly with leaving one job and searching for/accepting another.     Several quiet anniversaries were celebrated (we moved into our home 3 years ago this month) and I volunteered to man the Odd Fellows booth at the local Stoneboro Fair several days last week.    Months ago I had applied for a Master Gardener class through the Penn State extension program.  I promptly forgot all about it as I have only done container gardening in the past, and I saw this as an opportunity to learn more. ...

When I first moved to the country I wanted to get involved in something.  I wanted to become part of the community.  I wanted to belong to, and add to, something greater than myself.    In small town America that usually means joining a Church or your local volunteer fire department but since I'm an agnostic bordering on atheism, the local Church was out.   I'm also old and out of shape so the fire department was out.    So that left the Odd Fellows who have a local chapter close to my home. While I may not always agree with who my local chapter supports as an organization and what they do butI know that I am making a small difference in the life of my community somehow.   A homeless person manages to snuggle under blankets provide by the Odd Fellows on a cold winter's day, a child gets a scholarship, someone gets a warm meal.  Today we don't think much about mutual aid unless we are giving funds to some charity or faced with some sort ...

  I never expected to live out in the country.    I never expected to enjoy it.    I never expected to plant my own food, or do much of the day to day “manual” labor that living out in the country requires.   I was a city boy, I had come to enjoy the distractions that a city offered. I never expected to love where I live, I love the quiet.   I love the stars at night.    I even love the deer that nibbled at my garden, or the wild turkey and foxes that live around me.    Which got me thinking, what can I do to improve the community around me?   Other than what I already do with the Odd Fellows ? Basically we live in an area of three closely knit towns, and despite the title of the blog – it’s not considered the “boondocks” but it is rural.    I live in the small town of Stoneboro, close to the small towns of Jackson Center and Sandy Lake.     Small communities that are all knitted together by country r...

This is going to be a more personal blog than normal.   If you have been following this blog for a while...then you know that Sue and I have had a series of deaths in the family.   We have not gone into that much detail concerning these deaths other than the passing of her father, and then mine .  We have experienced the loss of loved ones some six times since October. Susan has half jokingly suggested that we simply hang a black flag outside of our home. These deaths have only reminded me that, since nether my brother or I have any children of our own (my brother adopted and I have a step daughter) that the genetic line that makes up this particular branch of the Wilson family, will go extinct.   On top of that we have had a "run of bad luck" regarding our automobiles as well, nothing that was to serious and nothing that was not caused by time and mileage.   Luckily, we had the money to  repair and replace the parts. Still, it was an unex...

One of the first items that Sue and I bought as a couple all those years ago was a grandfather clock.  We used to snuggle under the blanket and listen to the chimes on the hour, the sound filling our house with a warmth and resonance.   That clock is nothing special, being simple in its design and technology.  It's accurate because of the beauty of physics and math...and is a lost art form in its own right. I thought a lot about time and place as we traveled this week.  I thought a lot about place.   Sue and I finally took a brief vacation recently.  Due to circumstances beyond our control, every plan we had made to get away earlier in the year came to naught.  My father became ill and ended up in the hospital which we decided to stay home "just in case."  He ended up in the hospital at least three times this past year, and I decided to spend what time I could with him. Family, after all, is what brought us back to Pennsylvania. We had p...