A quiet New Year arrives in Honey Hill Country, bringing stillness, reflection, and the promise of days yet to be read.
The New Year has come quietly to Honey Hill Country.
A cold winter morning has settled in. Snow lies clean and unbroken beneath the trees, save for a line of rabbit tracks stitching their way across the yard and disappearing into the brush. Frost rests easy on the fence rails, and the woods hold the kind of silence that only follows a good snowfall — deep, listening, and kind.
No fanfare, no fuss — just the slow turning of the calendar page, with a fresh stack of new mornings waiting to be opened on the kitchen table. The old year folded itself away politely, and the new one stepped in like a neighbour removing their hat at the door.
Out here, the year always begins the same way — with a pause.
There is time to look back at what was carried, what was learned, and what, perhaps, is ready to be set down. There is time to stand a moment longer at the window and consider what might yet come walking up the lane. And there is time — always time — to say, You Are Welcome Here.
Honey Hill Country remains much as you left it — and Little Red Bear is still right where he has always been.
The paths are familiar. The front porches are swept. The kettle is warm — Little Red Bear is keeping it so. Your choice, coffee or tea. Fresh biscuits, always. The stories continue — some by the fire, some on the page, and some quietly, heart to heart.
As the new year unfolds, there will be small kindnesses, ordinary miracles, and a few good surprises tucked between the days. There will be laughter that arrives unannounced. There will be reflections that linger. And there will be new rhythms settling gently into place, one week at a time.
Later this month, something long-planned and much-loved will find its way into the light — The Hearth & Holler Gazette, a weekly visit of tales, tidings, and old-time country comfort, shared from Little Red Bear’s corner of Honey Hill Country and meant to be read slowly, like the morning paper at the table.
But for now, there is no rush.
This first week of January is for standing still just long enough to take a breath, to look around, and to remember that beginnings do not need to be loud to be meaningful.
So welcome — to the New Year, to Little Red Bear’s Honey Hill Country, and to whatever good may yet come.
The gate is open. The light is on.
Come in when you are ready.
— Jim (and Red!)
“A new year does not ask us to be different people,”
Clara Thimblewick once wrote,
“only to listen a little more closely to the better parts of ourselves.”
Pen-and-ink illustrations created with the assistance of AI and lovingly styled for Little Red Bear Land.
gathered up like pinecones on a woodland walk.
the steady companionship of stories. And speaking of laughter, I find myself laughing more freely these days — from those spontaneous outbursts when something just plain tickles my funny bone, to shared belly laughs with friends and family, to the occasional gut-busting guffaw that invites a touch of embarrassment now and again. I’ve learned over the years that not taking oneself too seriously is good for the soul — and for the blood pressure. The world could do with a little more laughter, don’t you think?
you’ll usually find it in good abundance. Will Rogers said, “I never met a man I didn’t like,” and I’ve found that, by and large, to be true in my own wanderings. Left to our own accord, most people are good-natured, helpful, and doing the best they can with the lives they’ve been given. Inside, we’re all more alike than different — hoping for a bit of steadiness, a touch of joy, and a safe, loving place for those dear to us. It’s a thought I may return to in more detail after the new year, because it feels worth lingering on — especially in the times we’re living through.
tell you he pays his way in stories, laughter, and the occasional good idea.
along the way, appreciate the simple, and share a bit of light wherever possible. In the end, aren’t those the things that carry us through the years and seasons?
against the early dark, as though each home were setting out a small welcome for travelers on the road.
them clear to the horizon. And along the wide rivers, the old steamboats travel slow and steady, paddlewheels turning like great clocks while calliopes lift their bright notes over the water. Folks talk face-to-face because there is no other way worth mentioning. A pot of beans on the stove counts as good hospitality, and neighbourliness is something you do, not something you merely talk about.
gentleness, as though the whole world were taking a long breath before rushing onward. It feels like the right place to set down our stories — far from the noise of modern life, but close enough to recognize ourselves in the faces around the hearth.
Ozarks Mountain Region, where the kettle always seems to be singing, the porch is always open for settin’ a while, and kindness hasn’t yet gone out of fashion. And yes, it is “settin’,” and not “sitting,” around these parts. Settin’ is something folks in the Ozarks and Honey Hill Country do — we “set.” City and modern-day folks “sit.” And there is a difference. Many readers have told me they come here for a bit of comfort, a chance to slow down, to reconnect with a gentler pace of living. And truth be told, I write for the very same reason.
within easy reach.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “The holler’s barbers have nothing to fear from me.”
things are about to get exciting as the “Louisiana Purchase Exposition” is scheduled to open in St. Louis soon!
James Milson - The Writing Pages 