My maternal grandmother, Annie Sparks, lived with our family during the while I was growing up. When I came home from school, after having made a detour to the kitchen to pour a glass of milk and fix a thick peanut butter sandwich on easy-to-tear white bread, I would go up to her sitting room.

Every spring, I begin cutting my firewood for the upcoming winter. It should be cut months ahead of time so it will dry and cure.

Greer is Missouri's second-largest spring. It is a place of pounding, frothing waters and of greeny-cool moss-covered rock, a place of fern and cliffy splendor.

We humans are a minority of giants stumbling around in a world of little things.