Yesterday afternoon I video chatted with my twentysomething for a bit as we routinely do, if not every day, at least several days every week. Thank the universe (and the engineers) for the technology that allows us to do this. He was sitting at his desk at home in his bedroom, with a soft blanket … Continue reading Family Story: When Doing Nothing Really Is Something
Outdoors
Travel Story: Three Days in Wilmington
Downtown Wilmington, North Carolina straddles a line that lies somewhere between the urban luster of downtown Charlotte, and its well-heeled, Old-Money South Carolina neighbor, Charleston. It’s decidedly scrappier than either city, yet possesses the allure of the Coast and the emergent culture of a city coming into its own as a destination. The Chef and … Continue reading Travel Story: Three Days in Wilmington
Gardening Story: True Confessions of a Mulching Enthusiast
Mulch, gentle reader, covers a multitude of sins. I know how to spread mulch: I am good at spreading mulch. David-the-Chef wants to know why on earth we should have a load of mulch delivered. I ask you, Does this question even merit an answer? Isn't it OBVIOUS? Mulch gussies up everything it touches: it is … Continue reading Gardening Story: True Confessions of a Mulching Enthusiast
Sunday Photo Essay: Mile-Around Woods Unleashed
Scarcely a ten-minute car ride from the bustle of our neighborhood lies one of southwestern Vermont’s best kept secrets, the Mile-Around Woods. It is a vast property once held by private landowners but now preserved by a conservation group and open to the public. Altogether, Mile-Around consists of a circular carriage road dating to the … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Mile-Around Woods Unleashed
The Stories Our Scars Tell
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, goes the saying. When my kiddo was only a peanut he took a bad spill in the foyer of our Knoxville home and landed face first on an unforgiving surface. His cheek met the pointy corner of a single step leading from the foyer into the kitchen of … Continue reading The Stories Our Scars Tell
Sunday Photo Essay: Human Nature
Listening to one of my favorite radio shows not long ago I was gobsmacked by this notion: we often think of nature as separate from us, a thing we must protect, else destroy. But the truth is, we humans are also part of nature, and not separate from it. I latched onto that notion right away, because … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Human Nature
Sunday Vignette: Scout Informs the Neighbor Woman
A two-story house abuts the line separating it from our property. Covered in asphalt shingle siding, it is an early structure, you can tell, nineteenth century at least. An educated guess says there’s clapboard under the asphalt, and the door on the other side, the front, has a pleasing curvilinear shape to it, double arches … Continue reading Sunday Vignette: Scout Informs the Neighbor Woman
Why Do You Run?
Why do you run? The gentle, soft spoken man balances a clipboard on one knee, pen poised in hand, listening carefully while I explain my habits before going on to tell him the history of a badly compromised heel. He starts scribbling while I talk. It gets me outside, I said. With my dog. It … Continue reading Why Do You Run?
Vermontish Doppelgängers and Other Christmas Week Reflections
This one thing still happens to me every week, if not every day: I see somebody and I think I know who it is for an instant, and then remember there is no way I could possibly know them. I am new here still, and mainly disconnected, still. Back ‘home’ in Knoxville I could scarcely … Continue reading Vermontish Doppelgängers and Other Christmas Week Reflections
Hole in That Theory: B & W Challenge Day 7
Birds around here fall silent in winter, but this summer and fall the woods around this little cottage have resonated with so much birdsong at times that we've raised a fist skyward: trying to sleep, here—can you please keep it down? A parliament of owls lives in our trees. That's what you call a group … Continue reading Hole in That Theory: B & W Challenge Day 7
Sycamore Stories 