Somehow, in some way, it is fitting that we both begin our day tending to the manure piles left by the donkeys and sheep after a night in the pole barn. Spring is coming slow and hard this year, and before Maria goes into her studio and makes her art, and before I go into my office and write on my blog, one of us has to move the manure.

Maria has a special gift for it, I think on some level she loves to do it. She is my Willa Cather girl, a goddess of the prairie, and then an artist making magic. Somehow, it all comes together.