And I’m calling him Van Goat. I’ve been making noise about getting a goat for some time now, mainly for the joy of watching the color drain from The Chef’s face. What use would I have for a goat—where would it live, and when on earth would I have time to take care of it? … Continue reading Journal Entry: Chef David Bought Me a Goat
Month: September 2019
Morning Miniature 9.27.19
Lucy whipped her VW into a parallel space and killed the engine, but left the radio on to hear the last of a Mamas and Papas standard she loved; she didn’t see the realtor anywhere and the building was still dark inside, so she unbuckled herself, and wrapping her arms around the steering wheel, craned … Continue reading Morning Miniature 9.27.19
Sunday Photo Essay: Butternut Squash Soup
It's the time of year I start yearning for soup and chili, feel the need to stand in my kitchen and create things. Tomorrow is the first day of fall, and I shall greet it with the best possible outlook, knowing it will also hand us our first plowable snow, and keenly aware our first … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Butternut Squash Soup
Morning Miniature 9.20.19
Lucy Ratcliffe could read by age four, and by six had ripped through all the books that interested her in the children’s corner at the neighborhood public library, even some that did not, and a great many of them time and again. At eight she consumed any piece of literature that crossed her path, and … Continue reading Morning Miniature 9.20.19
Our Vermont Life: Changing Landscapes, Changing Times
A few years ago, Chef David and I stopped in to a small retail store in Manchester, Vermont, just one town removed from our own at the time. Manchester is picturesque and off the beaten path, nestled in the shadows of the breathtaking Taconic Mountains in western Vermont, a town known for its high-end shopping … Continue reading Our Vermont Life: Changing Landscapes, Changing Times
Morning Miniature 9.13.19
Claudia Freeman married young and resigned herself to a life of child rearing and servitude. She was a buxom woman by her late thirties, not at all corpulent, and her hands by then already betrayed expertise in occupations domestic and horticultural. She could remove a sheet pan from a hot oven with a threadbare mitt … Continue reading Morning Miniature 9.13.19
Dog Story: We Try Dock Diving
There’s a little piece of conventional wisdom that goes something like, know your limits. If you’re a parent, then you know this truth applies also to your child’s or children’s limits: Everybody wins when you understand what you can reasonably expect of your kiddo—and what you can’t. Turns out the same thing’s true for doggies. … Continue reading Dog Story: We Try Dock Diving
Morning Miniature 9.6.19
Cessily moved the feather duster gingerly around the trophies and artifacts on the wood bookcases, the signed baseball in its little glass box, a love-worn teddy bear propped into a corner, and the small easel-backed photographs showing groups of triumphant and dewy-faced boys, grinning ear to ear. A boy in the middle of one photo … Continue reading Morning Miniature 9.6.19
Journal Entry: We Have Cicadas!
And the photographic evidence is right up ^ there. Last Saturday morning Scoutie and I struck out on our usual city run, which takes us down a couple of tree-line pathways that wind along the Walloomsac River in a sort of parklike setting—same river in fact that delineates the southern boundary of our property—before we … Continue reading Journal Entry: We Have Cicadas!
Sycamore Stories 