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So: we've had snow and iceand ice and snowand rain and sleetand sleet and rainand snow and iceand so it goes
You can hardly breatheit is so beautiful:





(*Click to enlarge. Stick your face right in there. xx)

Stones on my desk
When I am thinkingI'll pick one upand roll it aroundin my hand
they're cool and smoothand reassuring
they're simpleand astonishing
and I love them
xx

When I wrote The Boy on the Porch, I was still living in western New York, with no plans to move, but by the time the book was finished, my husband and I were moving to Maine, following other family members, including two beloved grandchildren.

In The Boy on the Porch, a boy rides a cow. I do not know where that came from. However, several months after moving to Maine, my granddaughter joined 4-H and fell in love with cows.  She liked to sit or lie on their backs after feeding and grooming them:


Mind you, I don't think she had ever mentioned cows before this, nor had I ever heard of a child riding a cow before I wrote The Boy on the Porch.*In The Boy on the Porch, a boy is found asleep on a porch.  A week after we moved to Maine, I went out onto our porch and discovered a young boy curled up in a chair:

Okay, this one is not so strange, as I knew the boy, my grandson, but I had a moment's flash of that phrase "the boy on the porch" that initiated the whole book.
*
This is the story of the mystery of a child ('mystery' in several senses), and it is the story of the ways in which children and adults shape each other. 
My own children and grandchildren and all my students were mysteries (in many senses) to me, and I'm fairly certain we have shaped each other along the way.
Mm?
xx

If you scroll back one day in this blogyou'll see this same viewindifferent weather
and if you were to lean in closeron this snowy dayyou'd pass throughthe window glass

and be right hereright now
. . .
xx

Shadows on an upstairs railingmimic the slim trees outsidestretching upward

andthe cold clear waters of the pondmirror the pure perfect blue of the sky on this cold windy wintry dayin Maine

and the sun
that floating white light orb
(can you see it?)
is a reflection


entering the window behind me
and flinging itself into
the sky opposite
and bouncing back inside
onto my small head

I don't know if I am
outside or inside
sometimes

xx

Maiden's CliffCamden, Maine
a beautiful hike

with beloved people


and dogs, too
Most of us wearing neon orangeto alert huntersto our presence
Such a day!
xx

so much dependsupon
a red wheelbarrow
laden with brownleaves
beside the whitebirches
xx

Check out the 'wicked' restroomat the Farnsworth Museumin Rockland, Maine. . .
This ties in with their currentWizard of Oz display. . .
Makes you smile, mm?
xx

Some of the writers and illustratorsand other noted book peopleat the recent Rhode Island Festivalof Children's Books & Authors:

Kate Messner with Professor Susannah Richards

Chris Van Allsburg with Jarrett Krosoczka

Gregory Mone with Avi

Editor Susan Rich with Dan Santat

and the illusive Lemony Snickett
**
Much love for enthusiastic readersand much love for fellow writers and illustratorsand book lovers.
We did laugh an awful LOT.
xx

Down in the harborboatmen and womenare making repairs

steadily preparingto wrap up for winter

cocooning


as the sun slides lower and lowerin the sky

and the dinghieslie in wait

for their final shuttlesof the season. . .


xx