Sometimes when I just cannot find inspiration for this column, I am driven to my bookshelf to search for a very special book, “My Country Roads.” The author is the late Mis’ Lou Brown, a wonderful person I met when I was a typist at The Andalusia Star-News many years ago.

Mis’ Lou submitted “Country Road” columns to the newspaper on a regular basis. They often landed in my box for typesetting. At first, I found her work frustrating. It was hand-written on plain or sometimes theme paper and all along she used some words with which I was totally unfamiliar.

She lived at the family farm with her husband Pat whom she often referred to as her “precious darling,’ my love, or my lord.”

And oh, how she loved God’s creation. Once I got accustomed to her writing style, I could not wait to get my hands on her latest writing. At first, I had seen no depth, but then I recognized her talent made the scenes from her windows and in her woods come alive.

It was plain to see that she loved her precious darlin’ dearly. She appreciated God’s gift of nature and described them in a most charming way: One Christmas Eve when all the children and grands had settled in to sleep, she wrote “A pale moon and an apronful of stars had been slapped against the sky.”

She told of “fairy rings and toad stools” beneath a big water oak tree. One winter day, declaring she was tired of painting pictures, she said that her heart was full of springtime expectancy. Then in a few days, she discovered a sign that spring truly was on the way: “The red maples look like they are sprinkled with scarlet. If they will only hold their breath a few more days, what a sight they will be.”

As I flip the pages of her book now, I almost laugh out loud as I read a chapter titled “Morning Splendor.” She has discovered that her “garden feeling is coming on her. I am so glad I don’t have to take pills for it,” she writes.

Those who love gardening will identify with her as she explains that the unsurpassed longing to plant and to dig will rise within them. She prays that God will grant that people may never lose their thirst, their hunger for the earth and for growing things.

She observes that two hens roost in the crabapple tree of breath-taking beauty just out her back door and informs them that “never have two ladies slept in such beauty and fragrance.”

On a walk in the woods, she questioned, “Where else could I find more joy and more peace than here beneath the budding trees with a pile of fragrant honeysuckles…”

“Each day brings something new and interesting,” according to Mis’ Lou. And for me, each page of “Country Roads” brings smiles, inspiration and appreciation that she left such a treasure to enjoy.