Why Choose Idaho? By Katarina Hockema I could tell the voice was targeting me. It singled me out from a sea of wandering eyes, unsure glances and excited yet nervous body language among the posters, booths, and recruiters
A Bejeweled Invader Story and Photos by John Shewey Mom might have been the first hummingbird feeder in Saint Anthony. We moved there from California in 1970, a time when providing sugar water in glass feeders for bedazzling
When the Exterminator Fails By Kim Steinberg The Boise moon was a quarter-orb of bright light in the southern midnight sky. Later it morphed into a cloud of daytime moon. My cream-colored golden doodles, Sammy and Nala, moaned
And Bottle Down Story and Photos by Joseph Zahnle It was just a yellow plastic bottle lying in the neighbor’s driveway across the street. I noticed it when I was taking out the trash. Someone had driven over
In the Suburbs Story and Photos by Joseph Zahnle One morning last March, my ninety-seven-year-old mother-in-law, Margaret, walked into my home office and asked if I had heard the turkeys. “In our neighborhood?” I thought. I had seen
The Chords of Memory By Les Tanner It’s a little after 3:00 a.m. in the spring of 2015 and here I am again in my nightly contemplation mode at home in Caldwell, lying on my back, hands behind
And Memories to Keep By Sayantani Dasgupta On a Saturday morning, sometime in mid-August 2006, I stepped inside an American café for the very first time. I had won a ten-dollar gift certificate in a drawing held during
Have They Made Me Lose It? Story and Photo by Joseph Zahnle Our Caldwell neighborhood is overloaded with squirrels, and once they found out we had birdfeeders, it was a frenzy in our backyard. I’ve never cared much
Just a quick note to tell you we’re leaving Moscow, to downsize in Boise. We are looking for an old house in the North End . . . Continue reading
The second time I spotted him lolling about on the top of the feeder, I grabbed a broom and rushed out the door, waving my threatening wand and yelling like a mad dog. The squirrel rather curiously observed all this until I actually started to swing, at which point he quickly and rather casually jumped down to run off. Sure, I pulled my swing, because I didn’t want to bash apart the feeder or actually hurt this talented squirrel, but I figured the near-miss and my angry scolding would teach him a lesson.
Silly me. Teach a squirrel a lesson where food is involved? Instead it only seemed to make an alarm of the back door latch. Now the squirrel had time to saunter off. Continue reading
