I’m a planner—always have been. I have this built-in belief that I can outline my life and make it happen.

Until I started writing, my belief held pretty well. I’d set goals and meet most of them. Sometimes things even turned out better than I’d planned. Experience buoyed my belief.

Then I started writing.

I plug away at my new career everyday. I love it, but I’m learning that I can’t plan and control and make things happen they way I’d like, when I’d like. It just doesn’t work. So most days are lessons in patience—not my strong suit.

I’m learning that the right things happen when they’re supposed to happen. Many of the “right things” are unexpected. The timing’s always a surprise. I’m finding that I have to learn to be okay with it. Even enjoy it.

“Enjoy the journey,” they say.”Go with the flow.”

Occasionally I do go with the flow. It’s effortless and exhilirating. You’d think I’d do it all the time. But not me. Like I’ve said before: I prefer to learn my lessons the long, hard way. Old habits don’t die without a fight.

We baled 70 acres of tall wheatgrass yesterday.

Some ask why? Why not leave the grass to grow tall and provide more habitat for wildlife?

It’s a good question.

This is dry country. In a good year we get 8 to 10 inches of rain. And the soil is alkaline, pH 8 or 9 in places. So the wheatgrass tends to grow tall through July and go dormant in August. We get a little bit of greening in the fall but most of the tall grass ends up on the ground where it can take years to reduce to soil. Year after year, the grass piles up and begins to smother the new growth. Weeds infiltrate—many of them designated noxious by Washington State. We’re obligated to control them. Hand-weeding is a tough row to hoe on 70 acres, so we end up spraying herbicides—something we’d rather not do—and then burning off the residue—something we’d rather not do.

We tend to think of haying as the least environmentally damaging alternative.We hay at a time of year when few animals are in the field, preferring to move closer to water down by the river. The hay feeds our domestic critters so we don’t buy feed at the store. Haying takes off the weeds—annuals for the most part—so we get good weed-control. Haying exposes the field mice that feed hawks and owls through the summer. The grass stays healthy and grows back in time for pheasants to nest in the spring.

All in all, haying works pretty well for us. Here’s a picture…

Sunset is at 8:49pm tonight. About 8:00pm, with a few coulds in the sky, our pastures will turn emerald green and gold. The wind turbines on the ridge well to the south of us will stand stark white against a deep blue sky. The Blue Mountains to the west of us will turn deep purple and high wispy clouds will go pink, looking for all the world like cotton candy.

This is the ultimate in porch-sitting.

I pulled open my underwear drawer this morning. It’s full of Patagonia boxer shorts, but I glimpsed one pair of all-cotton, blue-and-white-striped Brooks Brothers boxers balled up way in the back. I felt a wave of nostalgia roll over me.
For over 30 years, I wore Brooks Brothers boxers every day. They were comfortable, understated, and compatible with my dark-gray-suit image. I was devoted to Brooks Brothers boxers. In a troubled and ever-changing world, they were constant and reliable.
When Annie and I moved to Walla Walla and I took up writing, I noticed that my Brooks Brothers boxers felt “different” under blue jeans. They didn’t fit my new image as a back-to-nature, anti-establishment, wild-eyed writer. And the elastic waistbands didn’t seem to do their job anymore. They wore out and went limp faster than I remembered.
I contacted Brooks Brothers about the failing waistbands. I told them the quality was falling off, so to speak.  They said they’d look into it and get back to me. (I’m still waiting for that phone call.)
So I whined to Annie about it. I told her Brooks Brothers boxers weren’t what they used to be.
“Lordy, Lordy, Lordy,” she said. “Have you considered the possibility that maybe you aren’t what you used to be? That maybe the waistbands aren’t to blame? That maybe your belly is testing the waistbands to the point of failure? It happens to a lot of materials, you know. Take, for instance, truck tires…”
“What?” I said.
“Something to think about,” she said.
Instead of dieting, I decided I’d try some different underwear. But after 30 years of devotion to Brooks Brothers boxers, I didn’t know my underwear alternatives. So I went shopping. (It’s something I hate more than getting blood drawn.)
The waistbands of boxers I found at the department store didn’t look any stronger than the ones I’d been wearing out.
The Superman briefs looked supportive but a little too confining.  After 30 years in loose-fitting boxers, looking at briefs made me pull my knees together.
There were thongs that looked like jock straps.  “When did men start wearing these?” I asked.
Annie shook her head and cupped a hand over her mouth. As I held up an extra-large thong to get a closer look, tears welled up in her eyes. Then she laughed so hard she drooled on the department store carpet.
I didn’t buy any underwear that day.
Weeks passed. I continued to wear my Brooks Brothers boxers—even though the elastic waistbands weren’t doing their job, even though it was difficult to stroll nonchalantly down Main Street with my boxers around my knees—until one day when I opened our mail box at the post office and a Patagonia catalogue fell on the floor at my feet, open to the men’s underwear page.
It was a sign from the heavens.
The Patagonia boxers looked sporty and stretchy. They came in vibrant greens, shimmering blues, and earth tones. They looked like they might be sort of “fun” to wear. And they fit my new image as a back-to-nature, anti-establishment, wild-eyed writer.
“Cool,” I said.
The nice lady getting her mail next to me looked over. I asked what she thought. She favored the silky-looking, eco-friendly boxers made out of recycled polyester. So I ordered a pair to test drive. They had baby brown bears on them.
The rest is history.
My underwear drawer is now full of recycled polyester. I feel back-to-nature, and wild-eyed, and sort of silky underneath my jeans. I’m even thinking about getting a placard and marching against something.
Annie has noticed a bit of up-tempo pep in my step.
You may notice it too.
So, now there’s just one lonely pair of Brooks Brothers boxers in my drawer. I may not wear them again, but I can’t throw them out. They have sentimental value—an all-cotton, blue-and-white-striped reminder of a former life and a slimmer me.

And here is the last picture celebrating Yoda’s fifth birthday. It shows Yoda getting ready to take a nap.

Here’s a picture of Yoda getting ready for breakfast…

And here’s a picture of Yoda playing fetch…

As some of you know, Yoda is my dog—a low-slung Corgi with giganto ears. He’s a companion, farm dog, and sometimes guard dog. In celebration of Yoda’s fifth birthday, starting today, I’m running a series of photographs of Yoda doing various things around the farm. Here’s the first, a picture of Yoda listening to an old Grateful Dead CD with me. He loves “Truckin’.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife Annie made another trip to the hospital—this time for severe abdominal pain. While the doctors tried to diagnose the problem, Annie lay in a drug-induced stupor, blissfully unaware of the activity around her. I sat by her bed, watching and praying she’d be okay.

Thankfully, she’s fine now. We don’t know what happened, but we’re not anxious to do it again.

While Annie was in the hospital, her friend, Gretchen, came to stay with her for a couple of hours, so I could run some errands. Gretchen’s a saint.

Gretchen said she’d told her husband, Ralph, what was going on. Ralph was away on business. She’d encouraged him to call me from the road to see how I was doing. She said men have trouble expressing their feelings, and this was a trying time, and I’d need an ear to bend, and I should talk to Ralph because it’d give me comfort.

“We all need support in difficult times,” Gretchen said, looking at me in a most compassionate way, obviously waiting for a thoughtful response.

“Okay,” I said.  (It was the best I could do on short notice.)

Sure enough, while I was out running my errands, Ralph called me.

“Sam,” he said.

“Hi, Ralph.”

“How’s it going?”

“We’ve had better days,” I said.

“Hey, Gretchen wanted me to call. She thinks you need support.”

“I know. She told me. What kind of support?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I think I’m okay,” I said.

“Sorry, Sam, that’s not good enough. When you go back to the hospital, Gretchen’s going to ask if I called. What are you going to tell her?”

“I’ll tell her you called,” I said.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Well, what would you like me to tell her?” I asked.

“Tell her we talked for a long time—maybe an hour, maybe even longer. And you poured out your feelings. And what a relief it was to get everything out. And you almost cried. And what a good listener I was. And how you feel a lot better. And how we’ve bonded. And how grateful you are. And…”

“I’m not sure I can remember all that,” I said. “But I’ll cover for you. Don’t give it another thought.”

“Thanks, Sam. Tell Annie to get well.”

“I will.”

Ralph hung up.

Back at the hospital, Annie lay unconscious in her drug-induced slumber. Gretchen sat beside her bed reading Good Housekeeping.

How’s it going?” I asked.

“Okay,” Gretchen whispered. “Annie’s been sleeping since you left.”

“Good,” I said.

“Did Ralph call you?” Gretchen asked.

“Yep.”

“Thank goodness,” she said. She looked relieved. “How’d it go?”

“Your husband is a savior,” I said. “We had a great chat and I got to tell him about everything that’s going on, and he’s such a good listener you know, and I poured out my feelings, and I’m so much better now. I had no idea how badly I needed to emote. He’s a terrific friend. There’s a special bond between us.”

Gretchen nodded, a tear coming to her eye. You could tell Ralph was racking up some serious brownie points until…

Suddenly Annie sat bolt upright in her hospital bed. Her head wobbled as she fought through the medicinal fog in her brain. Then, slurring her words, she yelled loud enough to wake the dead, “Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Gretchen. The man’s lying through his hat.”

Exhausted from the effort, Annie flopped onto her pillow and went back to sleep.

Gretchen frowned at me and went cross-eyed.

Ralph’s brownie points went up in smoke.

I left for a wedding on the East Coast last Thursday with all kinds of good intentions—eating right, drinking lots of liquids, remaining calm in the midst of big wedding chaos, just one glass of champagne at the rehearsal dinner and just one more at the wedding reception, early to bed, early to rise and walk and write, and keep up with my blog. Like I said, good intentions.

Annie and I left Walla Walla at the crack of dawn. Our first flight arrived in Minneapolis right on schedule, about lunchtime. I was hungry. I’m always hungry. But I’d not been gone from good intentions long enough to have forgotten my vows, so I bought a pre-packaged small salad instead of the Coney Island foot-long hot dog with the chili and onions and slaw and pickles and mustard. I was making a good choice for a change and feeling exceptionally self-righteous. I ate the tiny salad while I longed for the hot dog and we caught our next flight, arriving at our destination right on time.

My stomach was rumbling a bit. I figured it was hunger pains.

It wasn’t.

To make a long and grisly story short, I spent the weekend writhing in food-poisoned hell. And yesterday we got back on the plane headed for Walla Walla. I had not eaten right or remained calm or kept up with my blog.

I promise to do better from now on.

Next time I’m eating the fully-cooked Coney Island dog…