Mary plucked cherries while Joseph stood around

I would love to go back to this tree today and get some photos of the berries in our current snowstorm but, you know, I'm battening down the hatches.

Grandfatherhood

My dad looks a lot like his dad, who died before I was born. Whenever I saw a picture of my grandpa, I'd ask, "Um... was Grandpa Keith grumpy all the time?" and the answer was always, "No! He was really funny, a great storyteller, had a really odd sense of humor." Not unlike my dad. But here is the reason I ended up asking that question:

This is my Irish dad, enjoying a root beer float on Labor Day weekend. Seems like a boy would like a root beer float on a hot day, but his expression for some reason conveys, "What is wrong with you people? Why are you doing this to me?"

Whenever I see him I try to get some candids of him being goofy, or relentlessly tickling my boys, or snuggling with them for a bedtime story, or in deep and proud concentration with Eli as they fish. Because that's the kind of grandpa he is, and some day I want to be able to not only tell my grandkids so, but show them.

This last one I edited to look like some old polaroids of my grandpa from the 70s. It's a little more of a smile than I typically get. We'll call it the do over.

You know we belong to the land

I made my mother-in-law pull over in the almost-rain so I could get this shot on the highway shoulder in North Dakota. I don't think she saw what I saw because she said something to the effect of, "Um, Christina, I don't understand what you're doing..." but this is everything I love about the North Dakota landscape. I didn't appreciate it when I lived there, but it's embossed on some part of me and I fall to pieces when I look out the window and see this now.

Floods suck.

All is well at our house in Baraboo; thanks to everyone who emailed with concern. Unlike Grand Forks, there's actually some change in topography in our part of the country, so though our house is dry, it looks like this just two blocks away. And I reiterate: Floods suck. That much has not changed in the past 11 years. I saw this poor fellow come out of his house in waders:


I wanted to say something encouraging. I went through it, too. This will pass. The water will recede and you will scour your home and dry your photos and pile on the curb your mud-soaked and most intimate belongings and cry, a little, in private, but this will pass. I promise. But I realized if someone had said something like that to me the moment after I tore the caution tape from my front door and peered inside, I would probably have slapped her. Or wanted to. North Dakotans aren't generally too into slapping.

Writing that just now I realized I'll probably include it in my newspaper column next week. I better stop before I give all my best stuff away for free.