Recently, whenever a friend calls to check in, it always seems I’m in the middle of canning something.

When a close friend got engaged last autumn, I knew that meant a wedding to attend this September. No big deal, I figured: just slap on a smile, a dress and bring a small home appliance as a present.

When I called a vendor last week to reorder some merchandise, he asked how I was doing.

Back in the days of Greek mythology when the Titan Prometheus gave fire to the mortals, Zeus tied him to a rock for the eagles to eat his liver out.

I don’t remember noticing them when I was younger. Now, on each visit to Artist’s Point and the Grand Marais Harbor, I’m amazed at the plethora of rock cairns I find.

Anyone who’s done the two-, or three-, or four-job shuffle in Cook County knows this isn’t exactly the land of milk and honey. Career prospects are few. Prices are high.

When James Herriot, the now infamous British veterinarian, chose titles for his memoirs of veterinary life in Yorkshire, he used lines from a familiar hymn: "All things bright and beautiful, all

Growing up, my brother and I thought nothing of trekking down to Lake Superior by ourselves to clamber over the huge shore rocks or skip stones across the lake’s surface.

If you know where to look, it’s easy to tell when the summer season is upon us at the cabin. You could check in the bay to see if the neighbors’ seaplane is parked at its summer dock.

We started worrying about our woodpile long before winter came. It was the first winter the cabin has been used all season and no one was quite sure how the little house would hold its heat.