As the writer of a book that has so much to do with American landscapes and our relationships to place, I decided that I had an opportunity to not just acknowledge past and present but to educate myself and many of my readers about the history that both characterizes those individual places and links them together.

It gets harder every time—leaving the place we call home over summer and winter breaks (and maternity leaves and sabbaticals and pandemics)…

It’s lambing season on my in-laws’ farm…

Morel-spotting, in many ways, represents the way I have come to experience this season in this place.

I remained compelled (if not committed) to letting baby arrive in her own time, even if it happened to coincide with the worst weather event our area had seen in thirty years.

I’d joked that I was going to have a blizzard baby—but as that date neared, that joke began to seem increasingly less like a punchline and more like a possibility.

I like the wood stove. Probably because I like fire. And probably because my urban Florida upbringing didn’t give me many opportunities to experience real cold—or a pressing need for a source of heat.

An ecotone is a transitional space between two biological communities: a borderland containing characteristics of each ecosystem, a place of stress and abundance.

What I know about people has changed the way I experience place.

As I broke clumps of soil with my bare hands to prepare it for Saturday's ceremony, I knew I was on holy ground.

A few days ago, I noticed the midday cicada chorus for the first time—a sure sign that summer is here.

Why is it so important to hold our places?