The house my family designed and built.

I recently spent a night at my parent's farm near the tiny community of Wabasso, Minnesota.  I don't get out there as much as I should, and rarely spend the night, so this was a treat.  I come from a large family, and one can usually expect siblings around on the weekend, and this visit was no exception.

This was the farm 80 years ago.

My brother Pete was down from Brainerd with his two kids, and my crazy sister Annie  showed up with her son, Ryan, who hugs me too hard and likes to ask me questions about biochemistry just to show me how dumb I am.

Gliding swing my old dad built                                          The gazebo.

The farm is amazing because it's much more like a park than a ranch.  It's quite a change from when I was a kid.  One of the most interesting changes I observed is at night.  It's still too dark on the farm once the lights go out and I require a night light. Big baby.  And I still take comfort from the lonely sound of a car passing on the tar road near our place. 

 But here's the new thing.  As I laid in bed in my too-dark room, somewhere near the wildlife preserve that runs along the south border of the farm, a pack of coyotes were drinking too much and having a party.  You should have heard them howl.  That was a sound I hadn't heard before.  I'm not sure where they've migrated from or why, but they were there.

Pheasant Hunter at Daub's Lake, Southwest Minnesota

In the morning, I awoke to the sound of a shotgun popping.  Welcome pheasant season. I'm not a big fan of guns, but I've always loved the sound of hunters at the lake in the fall.  I can't explain it.