Contrast is everywhere, especially where I live in Fremont County, Colorado. On one side of the Arkansas River Valley, paleontologists have spent nearly two centuries uncovering dinosaur fossils including encrusted footprints, fossilized eggs, and the complete skeletal remains of a stegosaurus. A few miles to the …
I watch my 1-year-old granddaughter one day a week. She slows me down, thank God. She draws my focus to tiny hands, the floor I thought was clean, the lower shelves of my book case. She forces me to look at things from a different perspective. And …
It rained at our house on the Fourth of July. But not as much as it did at this mud-eo a few years back in Drummond, Montana. Only once have I seen a rodeo canceled due to weather, but I guess standing water in the arena would …
Our dear friends, Mark and Lynne Schricker, took my husband and me on a picnic-lunch tour of true Cowboy Country last week – the country of my heart and the country that serves as the setting for my recent book, Branding the Wrangler’s Heart. Hop in the …
I was so thrilled to learn that one of my books was named a finalist for two awards this year, that I kept opening the email notices over and over again just to read the good news! Silly, I know, but it’s not every day one receives …
I found my epitaph—at least it’s what I hope my family will choose: “Though she never performed a miraculous sign, all that she said about Jesus was true.” That’s an almost direct quote from John 10:41 in the NIV Bible, and refers to John the Baptist: “Though …
“Trusting God with her eternal soul had been easy for Livvy. She had been raised to take Him at His word, and she believed what He said about salvation. It all made sense to her—God’s gift of love and salvation in Jesus. But trusting Him with her …
“Blot out my transgressions” is printed in blue ink on the back cover of my new book, Branding the Wrangler’s Heart. That phrase is from Psalm 51:1,2 and it undergirds one important question in the book: Will Livvy forgive Whit for how he treated her in the …
Every Easter brings to mind the years my family participated in a passion play at our church. Those re-enactments of key events in the life of Christ left an indelible mark on my heart. I played the part of a woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her …
Our local ranch and farm supply store is singing a song of life. As soon as you step through the sliding glass doors, the music tickles your ear and draws you to a warm spot where peeping chicks are bobbling around in their fuzzy jackets. And keeping …
From the tracks in the snow this winter, I figured we had a good-sized jackrabbit. Either that or a kangaroo. But it wasn’t until the last 8-inch “dusting” we received that I actually saw the critter. Looking out the kitchen window, I spotted a new stump in …
Tonight at midnight we lose an hour as we set our clocks forward to 1 a.m. Personally, I won’t be awake to spring ahead, and will have already given up those precious sixty minutes. Airline travelers lose more than an hour when traveling across the international dateline. …
My dad had an old cast iron stove in his “office” – a building out back of our house that women today would call a man cave. The stove sat right in the middle of the room surrounded by desks, chairs, book shelves, and a drafting table. …
There is a curve in US Highway 50 west of Cañon City, Colorado, that the locals call Soda Point. For perhaps a couple of centuries a natural soda spring bubbled up there and Utes and explorers alike took the waters. In the late 1940s someone or many …
The Cowboy Takes a Wife releases on Kindle today and in paperback on Feb. 4. Read on to see how you can win a signed copy. *** Before Colorado statehood was attached to this stretch of prairie and Rocky Mountains, it was known as Kansas Territory (or …