Cane Hill, Missouri

I am in rural Missouri. It is 5 am and I am awake; not that I have to be, I just am. I have not done any formal meditation here, like I usually do in the city. I checked and I feel as though I have already meditated. Anything I do will serve.
Yesterday--St. Patrick's Day--was my mother-in-law's birthday. My wife and I made corned beef and cabbage and a delicious chocolate cake. We celebrated my birthday, too, because it comes up later this month when we will be back in Portland.
We spent a long time just sitting and lying out in the yard before supper. It was such a beautiful day and we wanted to see all the signs of Spring and listen to the birds sing. Later, Karen and I walked down to the spring to pick watercress while Mom took a nap. When we returned to the house, Alex, Mom's dog, was rarin' to go for a walk, so I let him off the leash and we walked up the road all the way to the highway while Karen stayed behind just to sit and feel the evening come.
Earlier in the morning I had taught Mom how to scroll through a photo album on my computer of pictures I took here on the farm last December. She kept asking me where particular views were taken and was really interested. Since her strokes she has been confined to a wheelchair and cannot get down the gravel road. In the evening, I took her through several albums of Oregon wilderness taken on backpacking trips the last couple summers. She has never been there and never seen such powerful falls or majestic trees but she could see in the faces of portraits what an exhilarating experience it was.