My eyes open and the list begins: I find myself pre-running the day. Harvest time is like having a crying baby…on an airplane. Our greenhouse has tomatoes pressing against it’s sides, like prisoners trying to escape. They climb their ropes to the ceiling and run roughshod along the floor. I carefully set one foot at…
Category: Outdoors
There All Along
After putting sheep into their new pasture and connecting the fence, I meander up to the greenhouse and the movable garden wagon. I twist the faucet and heft the hose over my right arm while I drag it to the wagon. I stand, listen to the cicadas buzz and watch the sheep graze new clover….
Unfolding Hope
Walking in Scotland I felt the lightness of being without; without a working phone, without work, farm chores making meals, cleaning, in short, responsibility. Paul and I strolled along the River Ness at a pace that did not include the fast-walk. We stopped to pet dogs, chat with their owners. We watched the trees slowly…
The Softening
What I have always found fascinating about weather in Vermont is how, after only a lifetime here, I am able to detect the arrival of a new season without the benefit of a calendar. March arrived in full lion-glory, a snow storm with wind creating mini tornadoes chasing each other across our road. On the…
Continuing To Spread
Yesterday I opened the front door and found three Wyandotte hens looking at me quizzically, none of us where the other expected. It took me a second to believe my eyes as we have a large pen that connects to the sheep paddock where the chickens live, the fence is very high and has an…
Another Chance
October, so full of color. Walking down our road I pull my sunglasses down onto my nose so I can see with a proper filter. Everything looks like a party until the north wind begins to whisper, cold rain riding its back. Suddenly there are only a few tenacious leaves swinging precariously from their branch,…
And Suddenly……
I fill vases and large Ball jars with fistfuls of lilacs. We can’t see each other across the table for the purple. The moment you open the front door you can smell them, their scent short-lived but powerful. We pull the plastic taut over the green house and anchor it down. I can now see…
The Only Way To Grow
On the corner of the cherry bar in our kitchen is a pile of notebooks. We have a few years of date books, just in case we need to look back for some reason, a six slot wire holder that is stuffed with business cards, pamphlets of places we have been and places we would…
What Frequency
I’m spending a lot of time sending out baby photos. Baby tomato photos documenting the growth from seedling to the true-leaves phase. I’m as proud as any new parent. Our kitchen has an eerie grow-light-glow that colors everyone’s face pale green. We began with about fifty seedlings. This afternoon I stood at the kitchen counter,…
Totality
Saturday we were on the Interstate headed north and began noticing the number of cars from out of state. Like the game we played as kids, counting license plates, we added up the amount until we reached our destination. I bought two pairs of paper “solar-proof” glasses in Montpelier several weeks ago before the supply…
The Firsts
The breeze from the north felt hard but the almost-April sunshine is warm enough for us to want to walk down to the pastures with the dogs. I have a pan of chopped potatoes coated in olive oil and sprinkled with herbs waiting to roast. Bright green stalked of asparagus stacked into the depths of…
Dirt Roads
There is a kind of buzzing under my skin in late February and March: it’s not bees, it’s a persistent, recurring agitation. It is mud. Late February, regardless of cloud cover, the sun is warmer. Driving the dirt road to our house I notice a new shiny slickness. The road becomes consistently wet, resembling the…
Deep Roots
We began February under a Wolf Moon: a large full moon named by Native Americans. It is believed that they named different full moons to differentiate seasons, and that when the large Wolf Moon was up it would be at the coldest time of year. Wolves would howl in response to the lack of food…