However haltingly commerce goes on during a pandemic, the changing of seasons waits for nothing and no one. We ventured outside for a brief walk in the moderate temperatures and glorious sunshine yesterday, The Chef and I and one Goldapeake Retriever called Scout. I've always thought of our little hamlet in the Southwest corner of … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Spring Is Open for Business
Photography
Journal Entry: The Pandemic Inspires a Conversation
Before all this happened, I was already reflecting on this notion, that in the intervening eight years between living through the kind of loss I think of as the emotional equivalent of blunt force trauma, and life as it is right now, my take on things has changed. Not everything. Some losses were undeniably horrible, … Continue reading Journal Entry: The Pandemic Inspires a Conversation
Journal Entry: When February 29th Comes Calling
I always think of my maternal grandmother, Alberta Sullivan Joslin, affectionately known as 'Bobbie' to her family and friends, on February 29th, which was her birthday. To me, though, she was simply 'Bob Mama.' I don't have many photos of her; she was only 19 in that one, which is a photo I made of … Continue reading Journal Entry: When February 29th Comes Calling
Photo Essay: Saturday Afternoon at MASS MoCA
We're lucky to live close to several cultural treasures, including The Clark Art Institute just down the road from us in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and if you hang a left just before you get there, a few miles on you'll arrive at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art—MASS MoCA—in North Adams. Yesterday was one of the … Continue reading Photo Essay: Saturday Afternoon at MASS MoCA
Photo Essay: The Mother of Invention
Pretty much straight out of college, my dad went to work for a company called Buckeye Cellulose Corporation in Memphis, Tennessee, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, which I bet you’ve heard of. Dad worked there for most of his professional life, and for most of his tenure there as a cotton linter broker. (The … Continue reading Photo Essay: The Mother of Invention
Journal Entry: A Holiday Reflection
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
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
Journal Entry: When Change Is Good
In a recent video chat with my irreverent twenty-something, I mentioned I’d heard a song on the radio that really resonated with me (it was a Blues Traveler song, in case you’re wondering), and after several days with that earworm, decided I must have this music, in spite of the negative review one critic gave … Continue reading Journal Entry: When Change Is Good
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
Sycamore Stories 