Resurrection of Christ, St. Mary's Church, Guthrie, Oklahoma I hope everyone has a happy and blessed Easter. We're going to brunch this morning with family, and it will be a quiet time unlike past Easters. I've enjoyed the quiet. We went to Easter Vigil last night, and it was beautiful as always. Lovely to see people so excited to come into the Church. I wanted to share some photos of our small church in Guthrie. It is a beautiful thing and reminds me of a wedding cake, all covered in white frosting with the stained glass windows as sugar flowers. Maybe not the best analogy, but it's all I've got this morning. St. Mary's steeple, Guthrie, Oklahoma Our steeple, stretching upward into a cloudy sky, has terrible, internal damage from a tornado that ripped through Guthrie and Piedmont on May 24, 2011. On this map, you can see the path...

Dahlias are vital bulbs in the summer landscape

Reading Once Upon a Flock What a cute title for a book . . . Once Upon a Flock: Life with My Soulful Chickens is Lauren Scheuer's loving memoir about raising her own chickens in her New England backyard. Although Lauren and I haven't met in person, we've bonded over our chickens on Facebook and on her blog, Scratch and Peck. I love her plucky attitude. Yes, pun intended. When she wanted a chicken coop, she built it. I like girls who wield power tools with aplomb. I remember when her Barred Plymouth Rock, Lucy, was sick, and all of us on Facebook fretted when the flock shunned her. Sometimes, chicken life is so hard, and chickens can be unconsciously cruel. You may argue that one cannot be unconsciously cruel, but I'd say you've never met a flock of chickens. It can have a mob mentality all its own. On...

Buff Orpington peep giving me the "stink eye." For all they do in our lives, chickens are undervalued as creatures and birds. I hate what factory farming has done to most things, but especially to animal husbandry. Companies may still advertise the "romance" of the family farm, but most animals are grown in large networks. Egg-laying chickens are kept in buildings in solitary cages all day to lay eggs--24 hours in bright, fluorescent light--365 days until they are worn out in one year. Just perform an image search on Google of factory chickens. Your first clue to their unhappiness is how pink and dull their combs are. Combs are naturally red. Then, look at their eyes. No spark or spirit, and chickens are spirited animals. I won't even go into what they do to meat birds. It's criminal really. If you want to know more, just watch Food, Inc.. There are other...