Parts of Art

    This week my husband, daughter and I took a road trip to Chicago. It just so happened that our day of travel was the same day as a devastating storm came through the Chicago area! It was a normal December cold when we started north, but as we drove we noticed the trees were more and more getting covered with frosty ice. It would have been a glistening wonderland had it been sunny. Our daughter, visiting from Orlando Florida, was delighted to see snow and frost. At the time she was making plans to come here, the weather was unseasonably warm and there was no hint of snow or ice.          We became concerned with the possibility of getting stranded in Chicago. According to what we discovered on our smart phones, hundreds of flights in the Chicago area had gotten cancelled or postponed, and traffic was gridlocked in the city. We pulled off the road at about the halfway point and discussed whether we should turn around and go home. Once we ...

      One night in the late fall David and I decided to go out in the woods and choose some trees that we would later transplant. Actually it was early spring or late winter, too soon for the leaves to be on the trees, which meant it was too early to identify the species of tree.  But we set out with boots and jackets on into the woods.  O n this one day that we came out to pick trees, our cats followed us out into the woods. I don’t think they’d ever ventured out this far, but being the faithful pups that they are, they must’ve felt obligated to come with us. So we’re out in the woods with our cats looking at little beginnings of trees and guessing what species they are, when we realize we are not alone. Our neighbor’s big German Shepherd was out there too; he probably came out there all the time, but we never did, so he was a little concerned by the intrusion. The cats reacted to the stranger quite differently. One of them (the tree c...