I Am Rich…

"I am not heartsick because I am rich and they are poor."
"We're not rich, Papa. We're..."
"Yes we are boy. We have one another to tend to, and this land to tend. And one day we'll own it outright. We have Solomon here to wind up a capstan and help us haul our burdens. (...) We have Daisy's hot milk. We got rain to wash up with, to get the grime off us. We can look at sundown and see it all, so that it wets the eye and hastens the heart. We hear all the music that's in the wind, so much music that it itches my feet to start tapping. Just like a fiddle."

-Robert Newton Peck, “A Day No Pigs Would Die”

The Country...

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

If you think the country is quiet, you've never lived in it. Tree frogs alone make you wish for earplugs.

-Sue Monk Kidd, from "The Secret Life of Bees"

Planning Ahead...

He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life… But where no plan is laid… chaos will soon reign.
-Victor Hugo

Nature

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

"To walk in nature is always good medicine."

-Jean Craighead George, "On the Far Side of the Mountain

Great Poetry

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

Great poetry, whether written in Greek or English, needs no other interpreter then a responsive heart.
-Helen Keller