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
Spring
Frozen Moments: A Memory
Impressionist-like landscape Leaving work last Friday afternoon, and even a couple of moments earlier in the week, I paused to drink in the landscape around our office campus, so eerily quiet just now. It always possesses a bucolic beauty, even on the bleakest winter days. But at some point when I was too preoccupied with … Continue reading Frozen Moments: A Memory
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
Saturday Photo Essay: Social Distancing, Vermont Edition
It's a grey day today, but the temperature was perfect for running, around 48 or so when we struck out. And there's no denying how bucolic the landscape. We had a good run. Scout ground scored a gravel-encrusted dog turd when I wasn't paying attention, which I had to pry out of his slobbery mouth, … Continue reading Saturday Photo Essay: Social Distancing, Vermont Edition
Journal Entry: Desperate Measures
I don’t want to write about it. How can I not? A little earlier I was outside visiting The Chef, who’s been doing yard work on this exquisite early spring day, raking leaves in the garden where we tried to grow veggies with mixed success last summer, but this summer will convert to a cutting … Continue reading Journal Entry: Desperate Measures
Journal Entry: Change Is Bad, Except When It Isn’t
“My ass is hanging off the bed.” Those were the Chef’s first words to me this morning, prompted by one Scout-the-Goldapeake-Retriever’s pushing four paws into me, with his back to the Chef, who was forced out of the bed this way. All six-feet-plus of him, at a quarter ‘til six. The planets are misaligned; that’s … Continue reading Journal Entry: Change Is Bad, Except When It Isn’t
Journal Entry: Tender Green Shoots
Whenever somebody up this way likes to claim we’re lucky to have four seasons, usually as a snappy retort to somebody else complaining about how truly miserable Vermont winters can be, my knee-jerk reaction goes, four seasons compared to what? What we more accurately have in these parts is five seasons, like so: Summer (it … Continue reading Journal Entry: Tender Green Shoots
Springtime Story: The First Snowdrops
The snowdrop, or Galanthus (from the Greek gála for ‘milk,’ and ánthos for ‘flower’) has supplanted the crocus, and the jonquil, as the reassuring first sign of spring in this Yankee life, still a source of bewilderment for a Southern girl after seven winters in Vermont (seven!). The jonquils have been blooming for a long … Continue reading Springtime Story: The First Snowdrops
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
Sycamore Stories 