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
Vermont
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
Music Story: Verdi + Friends
Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem—or simply Requiem, as it’s often called—is big work that goes down like a gulp of a chewy Cabernet, a soul-satisfying swill of life that gets bigger and better with every reprised chorus of Dies Irae—the day of wrath. It was among the last of his works, near the end of … Continue reading Music Story: Verdi + Friends
Artifact Story: Found Objects
I stood in my friend Jane’s big, open kitchen in Knoxville one morning nearly a decade ago gazing upward at a particular skylight over the adjacent living area. Several other friends stood there with me, our hands on our hips and our brows furrowed, trying to get a better look. A moment earlier one of … Continue reading Artifact Story: Found Objects
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
In Like a Lion: Vermontish Running Habits
March is indeed stomping in like a lion this year. But two weeks ago, for two consecutive days, it was warm enough for shirt sleeves. We broke records. Same thing last week, though not quite as warm. Out came the running shoes, and the long leash, and the water bowl for the car. About this … Continue reading In Like a Lion: Vermontish Running Habits
Lenten Reflections: Sunday Photo Essay
Last Thursday, one day after Ash Wednesday, was crazy warm—we hit 54 degrees, I think, or close to it. Just about unheard of on a February day in Vermont. I ditched my yoga class and instead grabbed my Big Girl Camera and Scout's leash and asked him to lead the way. He made a beeline … Continue reading Lenten Reflections: Sunday Photo Essay
Vermont Vortex: When Parts Fail
What is that thing, you ask? Why, it’s a completely broken alternator plucked from an ’07 Subaru Outback. (What—you don’t have random car parts on the floor in your mudroom? You should; all the popular people are doing it.) I snapped that photo in the early morning hours on Friday, when one impatient David-the-Chef stood … Continue reading Vermont Vortex: When Parts Fail
