everybody loves a parade Our house is a jumble of boxes, papers are everywhere, artwork has come down and rests against walls, laundry is piled high. The fridge and pantry are empty mainly, and shall stay that way at this point. I've spent hours on the phone and online doing the things one does, cancelling … Continue reading This Is How a New Chapter Begins
Bennington
Birthday Week 2021
Happy birthday to us Another year's in the books for Chef David and for me. Here we are, smack in the middle of birthday week, and smack in the middle of scrubbing, sorting, pitching, and packing ahead of Reboot.2, this time the two of us plus one bewildered doggie. It'll be okay, we think. We've … Continue reading Birthday Week 2021
Farewell to Thee, Dear Clapboard New Englander
There you stood in your pale green frock with white trim, showing a little age but resolute and desirable still, ready for come what may. You embraced us when we walked inside, asked where we’d been, and so we knew we were yours. We massaged your muscles and traced the contours in your bones with … Continue reading Farewell to Thee, Dear Clapboard New Englander
Sunday Almanac: Meteorological Summer Is Here
Which means the solstice is not too far off. Our house guests have gone home, but the last pair of days they were with us Vermont pulled out all the stops and lobbed damp, grey, winter-like weather our way. Earlier in the week I’d already fished out a hooded sweatshirt for one of them, who … Continue reading Sunday Almanac: Meteorological Summer Is Here
Sunday Photo Essay: Out and About Bennington
The Putnam Block in Bennington, Vermont We have some visitors at our house this week, a little unplanned but most welcome. We took a stroll around downtown this afternoon and snapped a few photos. I'm struck by the contrast between this photo essay and another I made during some of the worst moments of the … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Out and About Bennington
Sunday Photo Essay: Hope Springs Eternal
plucky parsley I was not absolutely sure I believed Chef David when he came inside from his run earlier today and announced last year's Italian parsley appears to have overwintered in our frozen Vermont soil, and is coming back. I'll be damned, I said a little later on in the afternoon when I crouched down … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Hope Springs Eternal
Transitions: A New Professional Chapter
Yesterday The Chef helped me move my office from the William H. Morse State Airport, Eight Oh Two Marketing’s Bennington, Vermont headquarters, into our home office. I am late to the party, as this transition is one most of my colleagues made shortly after the pandemic changed the business landscape across the globe. It was … Continue reading Transitions: A New Professional Chapter
Sitting with My Sadness
that day Scout and I met up with a Great Blue Heron on the Walloomsac in downtown Bennington A tragic story lies herein. The Green Mountain State is doing what it does in January, and nobody should be surprised. Still. For this Southern transplant, at this particular mile marker in the journey, bone and sinew … Continue reading Sitting with My Sadness
Sunday Almanac: We March Inevitably Towards Winter
It is always a little sad to me when the snowplow rig assemblies start showing up on pickup trucks around town; it’s inevitable, but cold weather comes a little too soon on the heels of summer (to say nothing of ephemeral fall) in these parts, and wears out its welcome along about April, when everybody … Continue reading Sunday Almanac: We March Inevitably Towards Winter
Sunday Almanac: It’s Fall Foliage Time in Vermont
Kinda. Here in town, some leaves seem reluctant to let go of the summer, as am I. But the ‘peepers’ have been here in droves like they are every year, not dissuaded by The Plague, nor pestilence, famine, nor floods, it would seem. This year they’ve descended upon us not so much in tour buses, … Continue reading Sunday Almanac: It’s Fall Foliage Time in Vermont