Solitude, sanctuary, gratitude. in 26 years, Eldon Owens grew them all, a 600 foot fortress sheltering his home on the windy High Plains of Texas. Landscape designer Jill Nokes recounts this and nineteen more feats of domesticity in a new book: Yard Art and Handmade Places. Happy Thanksgiving!
Fruithurst is a small, rural Alabama town with a school that definitely doesn't serve the sons and daughters of millionaires. And every child is successful. Every one.
The Smith Center (Kansas) Redmen beat Oakley Friday night 56-0, which means there's no jinx that comes with being on the front page of the New York Times. The Times wrote about the Redmen, Smith Center and a good small town Friday, before the team took on undefeated Oakley.
The story is about a community that works. Smith County is on the list of the most prosperous rural communities, and we can see why. "What we do around here real well is raise kids," Smith Center Coach Roger Barta said. "None of this is really about football. We're going to get scored on eventually, and lose a game, and that doesn't mean anything. What I hope we're doing is sending kids into life who know that every day means something."
Fate leaves it up to Paula Miller -- a cardiologist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina -- to take her parents back to their "home places" in the rural Deep South. Families are changing and so is thinking, Paula's included.
Photographer Kay Westhues is as awestruck as a stranger and as comfy as a native in Northern Indiana. (She's also keeping count of all the local places to eat.)
A family with roots in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, maintains a Sunday meal custom for all of Edcouch, Texas. Barbacoa is both traditional and an overnight sensation.
Suburban dogs are pampered, La-Z-Boy ghosts of dogs, their dog-ness stolen by the comforts of couch, warmth and diet dog food. Rez dogs, however, have purpose, community and a place.
Remembering growing up and taking those magical trips to the dump. For those of us on the reservation, the dump was a store with infinite variety and a drive-in movie theater that never showed a re-run.