Kim Matlock

How a quiet rescue puppy from the county shelter became Ripley, the newest member of Matlock Farms, and claimed our bed on night one.

There are currently fifty-four rose bushes growing at Matlock Farms, representing twenty-one different varieties. Most are David Austin roses. That sounds impressive until you realize what a rose actually is. A rose is not a permanent thing. It is an agreement. You spend months tending a plant that offers only brief moments of perfection. You prune. You fertilize. You water. You watch for disease. You protect new growth. Then one morning, almost without warning, a bloom opens. For a few days,...

Bandit died on his thirteenth birthday. Even writing that sentence feels unreal. Like something that should belong to someone else’s story, not ours. For thirteen years, he slept between us almost every night. A small, stubborn constant woven so deeply into the rhythm of life that I never really considered what the bed — or the house — would feel like without him in it. Now there is an empty space between us. And somehow that empty space feels much larger than a little dog. The farm teaches...