by Laura Parker Roerden You can find just about anything you could dream in an ocean. Tiny horses holding on by prehensile tails to flat vines that float upwards and shimmer in sunlight like cities. Red squid that fly with vampire wings and shoot out light orbs to stun predator or prey. A flat rayContinue reading “The Quest”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Pass the Pastured-Eggs, Please!
Best Investments in Sustainability by Laura Parker Roerden What kind of eggs should you buy? Most of us make the decision standing in the grocery aisle, the refrigerator door open scanning cartons with claims like “cage-free,” “organic,” “antibiotic free” and the ever-confusing “natural,” while we mentally calculate how much more we are spending for theContinue reading “Pass the Pastured-Eggs, Please!”
Carrying the Moon
by Laura Parker Roerden Seven bluebirds live on the edge of our hayfield. Their flight has helped me understand the loss of my father and brother, two generations of farmers who died as dominoes go down; one right after the other. On the end of the field, where a barren lawn meets boughs of wildContinue reading “Carrying the Moon”
The Leatherback Turtle
by Laura Parker Roerden She asked not why leaving the water should call her, even as she dragged herself onto the beach, a soldier, crawling as her body thickened, while she sunk more deeply into the sand than peace, softness rising to accommodate. A sigh above her carried a mist along the beach, asContinue reading “The Leatherback Turtle”
Humpbacks Feeding
by Laura Parker Roerden We first see the humpbacks at the surface, their mouths ballooning open, unfolding in pleats like a girl’s skirt caught in the wind. Seawater and herring is caught now as soup meeting hunger. There are nine whales, I’m told. Their mouths seem to open up as if the hinge that holdsContinue reading “Humpbacks Feeding”
The Bobcat
by Laura Parker Roerden I awoke to a moonlit hayfield, as if entering a dream. A bobcat, crouched in dried grass, was staring at me. I watched back, his frighteningly large outline a shadow, his two eyes outstretched as if handing me something. He lifted the full moon from the edge of the now darkContinue reading “The Bobcat”
This Old (Farm)House
by Laura Parker Roerden This morning, I awoke to a simple pale orb moving in a confused pattern in the window of my bedroom in the farmhouse. Bits of morning were reflected in flashes off wings like patches of hope in a stretch of darkness. I must have rubbed my eyes too hard in aContinue reading “This Old (Farm)House”
A Baracuda and Boa
by Laura Parker Roerden I once saw a torpedo of a barracuda rake through a school of fairy basslets, gorging on the smaller fish as if they were kernels of popcorn at a movie. The barracuda was all torque and fang; the fairy basslets a delicate purple and orange, like a fragile glass vase createdContinue reading “A Baracuda and Boa”
The Water Awaits
by Laura Parker Roerden A river of loss can still bring one home to an ocean, where brine buoys and anchors us, as if connected to a larger vessel by a line. A pond in a clearing can mirror our hearts like a palm extended connects to arteries and carries blood from places deep and well hidden.Continue reading “The Water Awaits”
All Creatures Bright and Wooly
by Laura Parker Roerden It’s been an eventful time around here with three weekends in a row of crises, both human and animal. The crisis du jour this week was sheep acidosis or grain poisoning of both of our Leicester Longwool sheep on Friday night. Sheep can not eat anything that contains copper (a common element in many grainsContinue reading “All Creatures Bright and Wooly”