Our little lake is a popular spot for Canada geese this time of year. A pair has been hanging out near our dock for over a month, and I wondered if they had a nest in the nearby thicket. The other day I found the answer–the male goose positioned himself between me and the dock […]

Last Friday I attended a wonderful session of the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival. Irene Latham, Laura Purdie Salas, and Vikram Madan all gave great tips on sharing and inspiring poetry with students, using examples from their own and other’s poems. If you’re interested, you can find a recording of the workshop here. As […]

I’m lucky to live on the swampy end of a small lake. Across the road from my house is an even smaller vernal pond–a temporary pool that usually dries up in August. The traffic on the road this time of year is busy with turtles and frogs traveling from pond to lake. We keep an […]

Welcome to the 2021 KidLit Progressive Poem, a wonderful National Poetry Month tradition started by Irene Latham, and now organized by Margaret Simon. The poem is created over the course of the month as it moves from blog to blog, growing a line a day. For the second year in a row, writers offer two […]

It’s that time of year when migrating ducks stop on our little lake for a day or two before heading farther north. On Sunday afternoon the spouse noticed a few diving ducks. I headed down to the dock and counted five red-breasted mergansers. They were too far away to try to photograph but the sun […]

My project for National Poetry Month is to give a little love and attention to my long-neglected blog. I’m planning to write and post some seasonal poems each Friday, mostly inspired by what’s going on in my neck of the woods. Today I’m sharing a poem that I wrote on March 1st for Vivian Kirkfield’s […]