I know that eating too much sweet corn will make me feel bloated and too much squash will make me positively sick. But how does one resist at this time of year? And so, I don’t. I eat way too many vegetables, and then I go back the next week and get more.

Now my sister was laughing. My father looked skeptical, as he did with a lot of new information discovered on the internet and not otherwise verified. My mother just looked very surprised. I thought it was hilarious. But we were all looking at Katy in a new way.

I spend almost every day alone, sitting at my little maple desk. But lately, I have had more fun than usual because I am working on a new book and I am writing about a lot of things I know nothing about.

Isabelle was only three at the time; her brother, Beau, was not even born. She was patiently explaining to her baby doll in the next room, “You are not a bad baby. You just make bad choices.” Isabelle rarely makes bad choices. I have made more than my share.

Most of my cousins were older than me. They were cool and listened to rock music behind closed bedroom doors and brought boyfriends to the farm and paid no attention to me whatsoever. The cousins younger than me were small and annoying and not able to keep up. You can afford to be selective when you have so many cousins to choose from.

I honestly cannot think of anything less relaxing than walking much, much too slowly in a circle with other people who are also walking much too slowly, trying not to step on the heels of the person in front of me. It’s kind of tortuous.

Emily Anderson is a wonderful artist who paints scenes from nature in Minnesota. Unlike many northern landscape artists, her work is never dreary. Her scenes of the natural world just exude joy and a sense of discovery and—it might sound odd, but it’s true—humor. Her work makes me smile. I want to be in whatever place she has painted.

This was not an undercooked broccoli crunch. This was not wild rice. This was the crunch you might experience while eating a sandwich on a beach when the wind was blowing. I looked at my delicious meal. I took another bite. “Crunch.”

The hour passed. I opened my eyes. Even though the chapel is lit only by candles and the windows are stained glass, it still seemed darker than it should be. Then I heard a crash of thunder. I looked at my watch. 7:00 exactly.

I know a lot of folks my own age who think they have everything figured out. They tell me how it’s all downhill from here—whether they are talking about the country or their health or literature or the quality of baked goods. Everything was better in the past, and now we’re all addicted to social media and reliant on the internet and nothing good will ever come of it.