Blogs

When I saw the title of a recent interview of The One Thing’s podcast, “The Gift of Struggle,” I thought: “Gift of struggle. Come on, what kind of gift is there in struggle? Anyone who thinks there is a gift in struggle probably hasn’t had much of a struggle.”

Summer solstice is supposed to be the longest day of the year. It generally occurs between June 20 and June 22. Scientists say the sun shines longer on this day, which makes this the longest day of summer.

If you’re going to murder your love rival, all the better if he has a cool name.

Currently, an Irish jury is deliberating whether to convict 50-year-old farmer Patrick Quirke for killing part-time DJ Bobby Ryan – better known as Mr. Moonlight – out of jealous affection for the 52-year-old farm widow Mary Lowry.

Have you ever noticed that when you have to break some seemingly bad news to your young children, they aren’t nearly as bothered by it as you anticipated? A friend from school moves away, one of their show calves catches some strange disease and dies, or the water park plans get canceled because the hay is ready to bale.

When I was young, I lived on a ranch where we had all kinds of animals. Chickens were plentiful, and I gathered eggs and have seen new baby chicks. Sometimes a goose egg was placed under a setting hen to hatch, so I believed the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen when I first heard his tale of “The Ugly Duckling.”

One of the lingering side effects of growing up on a dairy farm is that I continue to wake up before 5 a.m. – despite being removed from the morning milking schedule for several decades.