Amounting to a Hill of Beans

Amounting to a Hill of Beans

Every day on our farm, I engage in the ritualistic task of moving manure to our compost pile. Cleaning the barn is a familiar and comforting chore, allowing me to transform something objectionable and just plain stinky to a tangible benefit: growing the nurturing...

Kindness Lesson from a Barn

Kindness Lesson from a Barn

Settling in the straw, I am grateful for a quiet moment after a 12-hour workday followed by all the necessary personal conversations that help mop up the spills and splatters of everyday life. My family verbally unloads their day like so much stored up dirty laundry...

1982

1982

“Thank you, Jesus!” she cried, her husband gripping her hands as she bore down with one last great shudder, pushing their third child, their first daughter, into my lap. Her prayer blessed this routine labor, which spilled forth in blood and amnion on my feet. At that...

Kitten-sized Worry or Lion-sized Drama?

Kitten-sized Worry or Lion-sized Drama?

Chores on our farm have been rarely routine since a batch of four male kittens was born in our barn a few months ago, delivered unceremoniously in the corner of one of the horse stalls by a first-time mother. There was a horse occupying the same stall and the new...

Delivered by a Storm

Delivered by a Storm

Your rolling and stretching had grown quiet that stormy winter night, but no labor came as it should. A long ten days overdue post-Christmas, you clung to amnion and womb, not yet ready to emerge. Then the northeast wind blew more wicked and the snow flew horizontal,...

Guilt Laid Bare

Guilt Laid Bare

As a physician-in-training in the late 1970s, I rotated among a variety of inner-city public hospitals, honing clinical skills with patients who were grateful to have someone, anyone, care enough to take care of them. There were plenty of street people who needed to...

Stumbling Upon Spring

Stumbling Upon Spring

Late winter is often particularly dark and dank. My doldrums are deep; the brief respite of sun and warmth too rare. Cranky, I  put one foot ahead of the other, get done what needs to be done, oblivious to subtle renewal around me, refusing to believe even in the...

Emily Gibson
I’m a wife, mother, farmer and family physician, living the rural life in northwest Washington state. I’ve been chronicling life on the farm for over a decade, with an emphasis on raising our family in faithful stewardship to our God and to the land we call home for the time being. My Barnstorming blog reflects that covenant, through words and photography. My writing is a mix of stories, personal essays, memoir, poetry, reflections, and meditations, some of which have now been published in Country Magazine by Reiman Publications/Readers Digest, in addition to regular medical opinion essays onKevinMD.com and as a guest writer for Her.menuetics. I have a published essay in an anthology called The Jane Effect: Celebrating Jane Goodall and poems and stories in other anthologies. I have collaborated with poet Lois Edstrom on a book of ekphrastic poems written to photographs I've taken: Almanac of Quiet Days

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