Today is my last ‘official’ day off in a week with a couple of holidays plunked smack into the middle of it, courtesy of our Gregorian calendar. I exercised a little opportunism, nudging some unclaimed vacation time around what was already coming, like a pair of bookends. There is still the weekend ahead, which will … Continue reading Journal Entry: A Holiday Reflection
Photo Essay
Thanksgiving Journal: Family Ties
Today when my irreverent twenty-something video messaged me, I explained I was making cookie press cookies. He watched me mix in the flour and work the batter until the dough was the right consistency to extrude through the press. I said the last time I used this little device he was still in elementary school, … Continue reading Thanksgiving Journal: Family Ties
Photo Essay: Golden Pea and Sweet Potato Soup
A gray fall Sunday in Vermont begged for soup making. We'll have our first plowable snow of the season tomorrow night, but we'll enjoy this soup all week long. The Chef is playing his first hockey game of the season tonight; the soup will wait for him. Thinking of all the veterans who made it … Continue reading Photo Essay: Golden Pea and Sweet Potato Soup
Sunday Photo Essay: We Go Flea-Tiquing
Chef David and I had a rare weekend all to ourselves, no obligations to anybody or anything outside of routine chores. Today we decided to visit our local flea marketer/antique dealer, a biggish operation in a mashup of old buildings, at least one of them almost certainly a large barn at some point, but with … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: We Go Flea-Tiquing
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
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!
Travel Journal: Knoxville in a Day
I feel less connected to Knoxville every time I go back there, a thing that makes me all kinds of sad, but also somehow helps propel me forward, make my peace with where I am now. Don’t get me wrong: I shall never be a proper Yankee, but will remain forever a Southerner, wherever I … Continue reading Travel Journal: Knoxville in a Day
Travel Story: We Feed Goats in Chattanooga
Goats were not specifically why we traveled to Chattanooga (we got there by way of Christiansburg, VA, thence to Knoxville before finally arriving), but the goats proved an entertaining and comical diversion one sultry evening on Missionary Ridge; they also made splendid subjects to photograph. I’ll get to them. A theme that popped up again … Continue reading Travel Story: We Feed Goats in Chattanooga
Travel Story: We Visit Fallingwater
Let me start backwards with stories of our Way Down South trip, that is to say, start at the end, while the images and sounds and smells from our special day at Fallingwater haven’t yet faded or grown too stale. We drove out of our way to tour this exquisite Frank Lloyd Wright house, widely … Continue reading Travel Story: We Visit Fallingwater
Sunday Photo Essay: When Life Is a Walk in the Park
Scout-the-Goldapeake-Retriever possibly suspect's something's up. The suitcases haven't come out yet, but clothing is piled in strange and unlikely places, and yesterday the house- and dog-sitter (whom Scout already knows from camp) came by to get the lay of the land. You could look at Scoutie's face and tell he was thinking something like, "Huh." … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: When Life Is a Walk in the Park
Sycamore Stories 