IT IS THE WAY of the world that things end and things begin. Sunset is followed by sunrise and vice versa. An old tree falls in the woods and young ones reach for new light. A year passes and a new one begins. For many folks the old year, 2023, cannot pass soon enough. It was a hard year—a terrible
AT THE CHURCH O THE PINES on this New Year’s Sunday morn, the congregation is well dressed and well behaved. Mostly. The Gray Squirrels throw their stoles carelessly over their shoulders and squall from the church rafters. The Blue Jay clan, having ridden down from the hills in the back of a ’51 half-ton Chevy, whack away on banjos and
AT THE OLD CARETAKERS’ CABIN at the Church O The Pines, the Old Year fittingly bows out with a coating of hoar frost. Time for new days, new dreams, a New Year. But the frost reminds us, there is beauty in all things—old and new, up and down, all around. And a young adopted cat named Koda, child of the