Introduction: Some kind of calling ; Buying hay -- Part one. Getting out. The tinnitus of truth telling ; Stacking wood ; Retethering ; Donkey chasing -- Part two. Digging in. The season of hunkering down ; Leonids ; Mother's Day storm ; Puppy ; A kind of quiet most people have forgotten ; Log chain ; The sound of horse teeth on hay ; Born in a barn ; Ranch archive ; First warm day ; Eating Phoebe ; Lambing -- Part three. Diary of a fire. Diary of a fire ; Carving rivers -- Part four. Elsewhere. Kindness ; Woolly Nelson ; Of spirit bears, humpbacks, narwhal, manatees, and mothers ; Almanac -- Part five. Deep Creek. Deep Creek.;The author draws on her travels and homestead life in the Colorado Rockies in an essay collection on her ties to nature that explores the symbiotic relationship between humans and the earth.;"'How do we become who we are in the world? We ask the world to teach us, ' Pam Houston writes. On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, this beloved writer learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the earth, the ranch most of all. Alongside her devoted Irish wolfhounds and a spirited troupe of horses, donkeys, and Icelandic sheep, the ranch becomes Houston's sanctuary, a place where she discovers how the natural world has mothered and healed her after a childhood of horrific parental abuse and neglect. In linked essays as lucid and invigorating as mountain air, Deep Creek delivers Houston's most profound meditations yet on how 'to live simultaneously inside the wonder and the grief ... to love the damaged world and do what I can to help it thrive.'"--Jacket