ON THIS BEAUTIFUL late summer morning at the Church O The Pines, I am off to lead one more Road Scholar trip in the North Woods. I love both—the tall, sweet-scented forest of home, and the vast wildlands on the cusp of the Canadian Shield. And I am very fortunate to be able to share that love. So, a few
ON THIS SUNDAY MORNING at the Church O’ The Pines, we are grateful for the rising of the sun. For the songs of small birds and the chipping of chipmunks. For the flowing of a river and the growing of trees. For an old cabin for shelter. For the screaming of jays. For the company of two fine cats. For
AFTER A WEEK of travels and adventures, it is a very bonsai morning here at the Church O The Pines cabin. And I am enjoying a few quiet moments with this little favorite. (Well, they’re all favorites). This one happens to be a white cedar, very similar to the beautiful trees we see along the rocky shores in northern Minnesota
HERE AT THE Church O’ the Pines it is a fine, humid June-Sunday morning. Father’s Day. Not yet too warm. And Simon, our elder cat, is posing on the arm of my grandad’s Adirondack chair. It is a chair that must now be about 60 years old, or more, and in need of another new coat of paint. Simon and
IT IS WEDNESDAY at the old Church O The Pines, and as everyone knows, Wednesday is church choir day. And so, with the return of many winter-travelers, there is much singing and caroling and hymn-making. The Baltimore oriole, in his orange and black robes, sings boldly from many a branch. The grey catbird trills and warbles endlessly from the shoreline.
THIS MORNING, after returning from guiding Road Scholars, it feels good to sit on the deck in my grandad’s old Adirondack chair from 60 years ago. To be under the big pines and beside my little bonsai friends. And to listen to the nearly full chorus of the Church O The Pines choir, flitting from limb to limb in the
AT THE CHURCH O’ THE PINES this morning, silence and peace-and-quiet are not the order of the day. Rather, many joyful spring hymns are being sung and there is much welcoming back of friends and relatives who traveled south for the winter months. A rambunctious ruby crowned kinglet sings from the pines and balsam firs by the riverbank. Our little
AT THE CHURCH O’ THE PINES on this Sunday morn the congregation is excited. They are excited because any day now—perhaps any hour—their friends and relatives that we call ‘snowbirds’—but they aren’t actually the real kind of snowbirds we just call them that—will be returning from the south. Sometimes very far south from what humans call another whole CONTINENT! There
ON THIS APRIL DAY, spring has arrived at the old caretakers’ cabin at the Church O’ The Pines. The canoe was taken out onto Old Man River, there to discover wood ducks and Canada geese and mallards and map turtles. Last night the first full choir of wood frogs and chorus frogs throbbed under the stars, and today the snoring
GOOD MORNING from Orchid Corner at the Church O’ The Pines…Where outside along the river, Sparky the Cardinal is singing his heart out; Canada geese are gabbling, wood ducks squealing, sand hill cranes trilling as they fly over; and the full, glowing disc of the sun rising over sparkling water. After a fine, soaking rain for the forest, it is