Monday, February 05, 2007


House of Fields, by Anne-Marie Oomen is a definite read. Her portrait of life in Northern Michigan could be a picture of farms across the country. You could change the time and setting, but you would still have the fears and loneliness of growing up with a worldview that is made up of the fields and farms of your home. Oomen's use of language, it's confusion, and it's way of broadening the universe, was intriguing. I could especially relate since, I was raised on a farm with little knowledge of what the world had to offer. I didn't have the language to understand. It was a great mystery.

When I went to college, I made a big joke of flushing the stool and flicking the lights on and off. I was from the "sticks". It was my first chance to see how other people lived: city people, ethnic people, other than farm people. When I went to the reservation in Arizona, I felt like Columbus falling off of the edge of the earth. Anne-Marie reminded me of the love of home and the knowledge that home is such a small dot on this planet. That's where the loneliness comes from.

My mom always said that you had to go away to come back. And so I did, and so I have lived on my family farm next to the big house where I was raised for the last thirty odd years. I am thankful for my travels and adventures around the world, I have language from these places. My going away has made me deeply appreciate my present surroundings. I love the memories that come from trees and hills, and roads and rocks. I cherish my history. I belong here.

Oomen's tale of a rural education has sent me a flood of memories. I would say that is high praise for any book.

Sunday, February 04, 2007


A crust of homemade bread with big globs of butter straight from the oven, I've died and gone to Heaven.

With the zero temperatures and no place to go, BF decided to make bread today. A good idea since it takes all day giving a body something to do, the bread baking negates the smoke from the woodstove, the oven warms up the kitchen, and we don't have to buy bread from the store for a few days. I made onion soup, so soup and bread will be on our menu for the week. And hey, how about thick slices for toast?

But really, nothing can beat that first bite of warm homemade bread. BF is top chef in my cook book.