I’m preparing messages to go into my satellite device. Typing on it in the field is cumbersome. I’m allowed twenty messages, 160 characters each. It is making me have to really think about the words I will choose and what it is I will most want to convey with you folks back home. If we…

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By Mary Anderson I’m thrilled. My van windshield is full of dead bugs. Over the last number of years I have noticed I seldom needed to clean my windshield of dead bugs. It has concerned me. I know that many cities spray to kill black flies and mosquitoes. Farmers spray insecticides. And undisturbed natural habitats…

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By Mary Anderson To soothe the little parts of myself that were so shaken up by hitting a deer, I stopped and tried to buy myself a hot chocolate. I say “tried” because when I went to the checkout with my cup overflowing with cocoa piled high with whipped cream, I was told by the…

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By Mary Anderson It wasn’t revenge. I swear. I know that deer are a vector of Lyme disease, and having just been diagnosed with it, it might seem I did it on purpose. I was tootling along Highway 80-West in Iowa. It was dark—about 4 a.m. local time. A big, beautiful deer ran right out…

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By Mary Anderson Just before I left home I noticed a telltale bullseye on my ankle. “Just what I need,” I thought. “Lyme disease.” I stopped at a clinic on the way out of Vermont and filled the prescription for the heavy-hitting three weeks of antibiotics. Both the doctor and the pharmacist told me, “Make…

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By Mary Anderson I am making the last preparations before I leave home. I have the van mostly packed. My food boxes are ready to go out. My pack awaits a few last-minute items but is otherwise ready for adventure. I’ve got food to eat while driving across country. I even have my dishes done.…

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