by Natalie Ogbourne | Jun 25, 2016 | Pause, Ponder the Path, Press On
Eight years ago, two months after we landed in a new place, spring unfolded like the twelve days of Christmas, each morning bestowing blossoms of a new color. Crocus peeked over the winter’s covering of melting snow. Creeping phlox draped over the rock wall and tidy...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Mar 18, 2016 | Pondering Life Outside
The springtime landscape in rural Iowa wears a mosaic of ever-deepening swaths of green broken by plots of freshly turned fields and charred black ditches. Growing up, I saw the burns and wondered why people, including my farmer-grandparents, endured the stress of...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Feb 12, 2016 | Pause, Ponder the Path, Press On
Sometimes, when we head west, we land for a few days at a cabin. In a meadow in Custer National Forest, it’s far enough from civilization that the siren song of phone, internet, and television falls silent, replaced by the gentler sounds of wind in the trees and...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Jan 26, 2016 | Pondering Life Outside
The twelve-passenger van made its way down Yellowstone’s snow-covered road not on traditional tires, but on treads meant to traverse the groomed roadway. Gone were the crowds and the fly fishermen of fall, replaced by seas of white broken by swaths of evergreen and...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Nov 4, 2015 | Pause, Ponder the Path, Press On
Once upon a time I looked at the empty picnic tables at interstate rest areas and wondered Who uses those? I never saw them in use and our stops were always quick and utilitarian. Then J and I had kids. Each of our three children was less than a...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Aug 18, 2015 | Pondering Life Outside
Because the things of earth end, because beginnings arrive disguised as endings, because this week brings both to our family in the form of college–a repost. It made sense when I was young. The cicada’s song signaled school’s imminent return. I enjoyed school,...