Before making her way into Autumn, Harvest stops at the welcome mat and checks the bottoms of her shoes. This time of year is pretty, but you can ruin things quickly by tracking dog shit all over the prairie.

He looks at me with old man puppy dog eyes, his face wrinkled and mopey like an ancient basset hound who’s weathered one-too-many decades with thousands-too-many kids. Ears the size of bread loafs. A nose the size of a late season cucumber. He scoots closer, leans in like he didn’t hear me, like I’m going to throw him a piece of my pork chop.

a warp-speed thruster-monster,

wings of breath

engines of awareness

abilities of mastering the second,

You know it’s a struggle for me, that I suffer with it. I guess that’s why you’re the monk and I’m the flying caribou. I’m reminded of the words you so often mumble: “These incarnations are our vehicles to explore the school of life, and we might as well take the curriculum.” Sometimes I wish my curriculum wasn’t so isolating. But now here is where you tell me, “Well, you can wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which fills up faster.”

Go with me, to a rain soaked morning in Iowa, where the sun has just broken its seal over the horizon, the rays pouring forth as a pile of children broken free for recess, their inhibitions not yet implanted, their directions not yet branded.

River says to Shore, “I’ve traveled far and I’ve seen so many depths, but the level of their shared knowing is new to me. I figured I knew all rhythm, all capacity. Heck, they could probably hold each other with a mountain in between”

Storyteller and part-time farmer brings you highlights from this year's harvest season with Hoffart Farm and ranch, a family owned and operated farm in Dallas, SD.

The moose would slap his forehead. The loon would want to call her mother. The otters would swipe everyone's wallets. The wolf would calculate. Matho would whine. Luta would correct the wolf. The customs officer would clear his throat and his calendar. I would forget to take notes.

She surrounds you, swallows you, gurgles you. You become so lost within the eventual submersion – a sloppy, slob-fest of a mess – you can’t tell where the rain begins and your pee ends.

The Canadian Shield granite is the bone marrow of ancient mountains and the memory manifest of one of earth's largest volcano parties.

If there is some sort of god out there, I figure she is probably wearing cowgirl boots.

A sexy, yosemite-like, push-press-pull-punch dihedral that will take your cerebellum by the ear, whip its tiny little cerebellum ass, then hang it by its underwear in its locker.

This rig begins with a lovely thinker-balancing-act on crips. Then all aboard the Train of the Jug Haul – cars not full of coal, but over-flowing with hero holds, the kind of jugs that are like parents, keeping you safe and sound, making sure no shitty grips are under the bed. 

This will not be easy, like the V5 you finally ticked last week in the gym on your first go of the evening after three weeks of effort and then six minutes of letting that hottie think you flashed it.

"I'll be honest, the 10-yr-old was a HUGE oops. I was on birth control plus I had taken the day-after pill. He's a fighter."

For 20 million years you were the heart of a mountain. How many can say that? No one can take that away from you. Go ahead, call them your golden years.

"Are you glowing?" I manage. It's good to be honest, especially with Angels. Baby Jesus likes that kind of thing.

This is the house haunted by ghosts on fire, where mistakes are memories as matchsticks. You can not see them. You can not hear them. But you can sweep their ashes under the rug.

Sometimes, in the deep bowels of dumbstruck love, you tuck into a ball, cry for your dad to keep driving, and pee your pants.

Those friends, as true friends will do, kept me from ripping my face off with my good hand and whipping it onto the refrigerator, like a spaghetti noodle, to see if it was done.

Most rabbits speak in a soggy, dense, smaze of Ulster English, an archaic dialect spoken otherwise in northern Ireland. As you can imagine, I caught every fifth-to-sixth word. I surmised the rest, naturally.

FIRST THING STAN TELLS ME: WHEN MALE ALPACA FIGHT THEY TRY TO BITE EACH OTHER'S TESTICLES. SEEMS A BIT EXTREME, BUT A BRO'S GOTTA DO WHAT A BRO'S GOTTA DO.

When feeding them, alpaca creep on you quietly, politely - with a distinct sense of mystery. They have tiny little moans and grunts and wheezes. Hunger as the sound of monsters piling up for a nap in your closet.