More from Red Barn Farm, the small paradise belonging to Llew and Jeannie Williams. Of course, it's a paradise they have to work at morning, noon, and night, and therefore one that I was happy to experience but happy to leave in their capable hands.

Martin took all the photos in a visual journal that is incredibly lengthy for the brief half day we spent there. He saw the farm through the camera lens and I saw it through my tape recorder, which I took along with me to help me with an article later. Much of our lives, I guess, are filtered through such lenses; I realized lately when I started working on a new project that everything I have been collecting and haven't had the time to translate into story had come pouring out, rather too crystal clear for the comfort of fiction. So I took the truth and looked at it slant, as a writer once put so well. Fiction is wonderful for taking all the details of our lives and shaking them up like a Boggle game, rewording them all.

Beware, friends of writers, for what you say--the stories you tell and the landscapes you reveal--are all tucked away, squares for an upcoming quilt. Every feather, every little chicken step. :)