Whoever said that Mud Season in New England goes from this time to that time and then is over definitely never lived here…or at least not near our back field. It was soaked when we arrived about a year ago, and it’s soaked again now. People in California, having to debate the rightness or wrongness of watering their lawns, would be envious. Besides seeing no end in sight to boot-wearing time, we’re getting plenty of opportunity to contemplate the many … Read More
Been to an aerial forest park recently? Our family got to go to one last weekend, and the whole experience made me want to give thanks all over again. Swinging around on those harnesses was both refreshingly different from putting myself through the paces of daily life on the ground and also surprisingly similar to managing regular co-existence with a bunch of other individuals who happen to be my spouse and my children. Take the quality of balance, for instance. … Read More
It’s uncanny sometimes how events happening in the big wide world can be mirror images, at once identical and turned around, of events happening by the hearth. This week, I’m trying to figure out whether we have anything to learn from the government shutdown or the government shutdown has anything to learn from us. Washington D.C. is still in a “stalemate” – not really news at all, I guess. Over in Egypt, they’re in one too, and that one is … Read More
What music to my ears it was last week, on a hot and humid day, to hear the whirring of the bush hog in our new back pasture. A transformation was going on, and while it may not have been exactly righteous, it was at least very good. Our wish to do some tending of the field had been stymied by two key factors since moving in: first, not having the right equipment and second, the constant soggy state of … Read More
The thing about life in mid-May is that just when you’re letting yourself be taken in by the beauty of the blossoms, the quills might come flying out and re-arrange your whole evening. At least they did for me –- or rather my dog — just last night. Since Rocky is pretty closely connected to me, and vice versa, I felt as if I almost had a mouth full of pain, too. And then, of course, there was the vet … Read More