“I already know the probable cause of my death,” he confessed to me sadly. I looked up at him, startled. “I will most likely be hit by a car as I assist a turtle in crossing the road.”

I may never totally understand why individuals who are strong proponents for the environment would testify in public meetings against renewable energy.

On April 13 the Douglas County commissioners will decide whether to approve a solar farm north of Lawrence, and whereas some citizens are very glad to be transitioning away from fossil fuels, others are very, very frightened.

And unfortunately, after the popcorn is finished and the lights come up in the darkened theatre, this man is not going to fade away.

This was no neighbor’s dog. This was a coyote.

“What’s going to happen to those amaryllises if no one buys them?”

He crossed to my left a few steps, but then paused, tilted his head, and looked at me from under his eyebrows. “What I really can’t go along with, are people who believe they are animals.”

Because Charles Dickens began writing A Christmas Carol in October of 1843, I’m wondering whether the darkening skies and swirling leaves of autumn may have influenced the inclusion of ghosts in his novella about the Christmas season. The ghosts revealed to Scrooge his past, present and future. I wonder what my Christmas ghost was trying to tell me.

Yet even though I had not intended to give him anything, I hope that he carries it with him and always remembers it.

After reading the headline, I told myself that I had no business reading the complete story, but then my curiosity got the best of me.

“Yes, divination is part of it. I have the gift. Charms, spells, some are skilled with herbs.” In a frumpy bathrobe, she looked older than the night before at the candlelit dinner table.

The next car that came along did not slow down and then drive off. Instead, it spun around and braked in the gravel right in front of us. Then the driver killed the headlights.

Few people are connected to the land anymore, so don’t realize how the weather report relates to their food supply, but this is what people walking through grocery stores teeming with shelves loaded with all kinds of products don’t realize. When they are holed up in their air-conditioned dwellings in order to escape the searing heat, there may be little or no food in their fridges or cupboards.