We sit elbow to elbow in the plane on the way to our son in California. We spend our six-hour flight reading, watching movies we will only watch on planes, leaning into the aisle watching for the snack service and talking about details of things to be done on the farm. I drag my backpack…
Category: Family
Searching
I finished the last bite of sandwich and began picking things up from the small square card table pressed against the window of my mother’s independent living apartment. She put her hand on the table, looked up and said, “I would like to ask you a question.” I set the plates back on the table…
Vacation-Brain
I believe that vacation is a state of mind rather than a destination. For that reason it takes time to achieve that state, wherever you may have landed. When we arrive at the pond there is chaos. Car doors slamming as everyone pulls bags from the hot backseats of cars, bags of groceries hurriedly pile…
Field Of Fireflies
Sunday afternoon, in the quiet of the church, Paul and I work together packing up the remnants of our spring student cello recital. As with most good things in life, we are, simultaneously, exhausted and exhilarated. I fold up the card table that held the graduation/happy recital cake and stack sticky paper cups used for…
Long Live The King
Sarah drove in: I looked out our bedroom window and saw her small dog, Chewy, hop out of the car in his orange dog coat. I made my steps deliberate and slow so as not to beat her to the door. She rapped quietly and let herself in. I squatted next to the brown doughnut-dog…
Lessons Learned
Each day is lighter a bit earlier. Around the holidays I’d flip on the outside lights before four in the afternoon: now dark doesn’t fall until after six. We still pull out the folding card table each evening, set it up in the living room, light the fireplace and have dinner in front of it….
From The Ground Up
In January 2024, it seems all of our talk centers around weather, especially temperatures. We received an Alexa device for Christmas from one of our sons a few years ago and one of the few functions we use is asking about the upcoming week’s weather… and how to spell things. Early January was characteristically blustery…
The Most Quiet Time Of The Year
I sit watching the snow fall from the sky in thick, ponderous plops to the ground. White rain. I can see Paul dragging chunks of wood that he had cut from the tree that had toppled into our driveway during the night. I finish plugging in the two crockpots of chili on the wood bar,…
How Much Is Enough
The difficult days are the ones filled with the “why me?” or, maybe, “why not me?” We all know what it is to have someone make comment from the corner of their mouth; wondering how you possibly manage to live in a house with “only” one bathroom, drive a car that a family of four…
Walking Into The Past
It has been one of those weeks; every line on every day in the calendar book full. This weekend the weather was sunny and dry and we decided to skip digging potatoes and hike heading to one of our favorite fall foliage areas in the Champlain Valley. Leaf litter crunches as a light breeze pulls…
Fair Time
The beginning of the third week in September has a distinctly different feel to it. Something wonderful this way comes. It is the Tunbridge fair. Paul and I talk about who will check the fair schedule, feed the dogs, and bring sheep up so that we are ready to leave as quickly as possible. It…
Circle Of Fire
The red cider press is bolted to the deck and ready to go. Leaves spin down, our road already covered. Our apple trees are loaded with hanging fruit which are also beginning to drop. It is cider season. Tomorrow we will spend the morning of the holiday as we do most years, at the Labor…
In This Moment
It has been raining, daily, for about three weeks. Paul and I feel that a little of Scotland flew home with us. The rain finally broke this weekend and Saturday morning we awakened to sunshine. The sudden dry spell coupled with the turning of the calendar page to May made us feel ambitious about spring…
Town Meeting Day
In Vermont, schools have their winter break at the end of February. The bonus has always been that Tuesday, March 4 is Town Meeting Day so kids have no school on Monday and Tuesday of the week following vacation. Every town in the state used to have Town Meeting: now it is optional, the town…
What Happens When Your Kids Move Out
March is certainly in like a lion. Well over a foot of snow Friday night through Saturday. We woke up to the rattle of the plow, assuring that the mouth of our driveway would be completely blocked. Chickens couldn’t leave coops and my book event was canceled, so we pulled up the flannel sheets for…