We are quickly approaching the six-week vigil Christians call Lent. March 5 is Ash Wednesday. I fully appreciate this is a solemn and holy season, a time of penance and atonement.

My Kirby Omega Classic celebrated its 50th birthday right before Christmas. It’s old and past its prime, but it still does the job, just like my husband, Jon. It cost me a month’s salary, but my uncle was a Kirby salesman, so it was part family loyalty and part buy-the-best-you-can-afford. I have a newer one for the main level, but the Omega is all Jon’s for vacuuming his dead animals room downstairs. I met Jon 42 years ago on Feb. 4, 1983.

Commemorating Martin Luther King Day always takes me back to 1964 when I was a freshman at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee. A first-class academic institution, MMC was also a “finishing school” for pampered girls from wealthy families. Could a dairy farmer’s daughter fit in? I was about to find out. From the day I failed at driving a tractor, I was determined to go to college. I worked hard at St.

One of my most popular columns of 2024 was the one about psithurism, trees talking to each other.

Here at Otter Run, it just isn’t Christmas without Kathie’s Christmas Candy. There are four that I make every year — cashew/peanut clusters, blossom cookies, peanut butter balls and seafoam. Chocolate makes me break out in fat, and I don’t like super-sweet desserts, so I rarely eat the candy, but I do have fun making it. If you are reading this after Christmas, there’s no reason not to give one of the following recipes a try.

At Hilrose Dairy Farm in Sherwood back in the 1950s, the Christmas holidays began in earnest the day after Thanksgiving. I loved that time of year. The harvest was over; life took on a slower pace. The coal and wood room that would keep the furnace going was filled to the brim. Food to carry us through winter was preserved and stored. The house was clean from top to bottom.