Welcome to My Green Vermont
I was born in Barcelona, where I went to a school run by German nuns, studied solfeggio, and played the violin. When I was ten, my parents and I moved to Ecuador, where I had a number of exotic pets and strange adventures. Four years later, we landed in Birmingham, Alabama. None of us spoke English, and the strange adventures continued. (Many of these appear in My Green Vermont.)
Survived high school. Got B.A. in French and Biology, Ph.D. in Romance Languages (French and Spanish). Gave up the Church and the violin, got married, had two daughters, taught at a liberal arts college in Maryland. Also grew veggies, made bread, kept chickens, milked goats, and wrote for newspapers and magazines. I got bored with teaching, took up running, and went into higher ed administration. I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and learned to live in a totally different way.
I started My Green Vermont when we moved to that state. For ten years I lived with my spouse, three dogs, twelve hens, two goats, and assorted passing wildlife in a house on a hill, surrounded by fields and woods. In 2014, we moved to a cottage in a continuing care residential community near Lake Champlain. Gave up livestock and vegetable gardening in favor of wild birds, honeybees, a little red dog, and a gray cat.
My Green Vermont is a fertile compost pile made up of stories about the weirdness of growing up in three countries and three languages; portraits of beloved animals, both wild and domestic; and reflections on aging, being kind to the earth, and staying as calm as possible. I hope you will visit often, and add your own stories and reactions.
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
Longfellow To The Rescue
I\’d been feeling discontented with my lot recently, resenting the limitations imposed by my condition (chronic fatigue syndrome), watching friends my age and older rush around accomplishing goals, crossing items
Meditation On Tony Curtis
The day Tony Curtis died, I heard Bob Mondello on NPR speak about him. He talked about his talent, his struggle to be taken seriously despite his good looks (he
Bacon, My Favorite Health Food
If you are a health-conscious almost-vegetarian but share your table with a devout carnivore, bacon is a gift from the gods. It is the one food that will allow you
Feeling Green
Went to the dump today, and please bear with me while I show off a bit. In these rural parts, there is no municipal trash collection. There is a private
Zucchini Vs. Bear
Last summer I wrote about some defensive uses of zucchini here. Now I hear that zucchini is not only useful against dragons, but against bears as well. A couple of
The Harvester\’s Complaint
Today I pulled up the tomato vines and removed their wire cages. There were still green tomatoes on the vines, but I needed to get rid of the plants so
Googling The Granny Square
While I was carving my piece of stone one day last week, the thought of granny squares flitted through my brain. You remember granny squares–if you were a child in
In Which Common Sense Prevails
\”In creative work, time should not and cannot be taken into consideration,\” said William Zorach. He was one of the best American sculptors of the last century, so he must
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
Longfellow To The Rescue
I\’d been feeling discontented with my lot recently, resenting the limitations imposed by my condition (chronic fatigue syndrome), watching friends my age and older rush around accomplishing goals, crossing items
Meditation On Tony Curtis
The day Tony Curtis died, I heard Bob Mondello on NPR speak about him. He talked about his talent, his struggle to be taken seriously despite his good looks (he
Bacon, My Favorite Health Food
If you are a health-conscious almost-vegetarian but share your table with a devout carnivore, bacon is a gift from the gods. It is the one food that will allow you
Feeling Green
Went to the dump today, and please bear with me while I show off a bit. In these rural parts, there is no municipal trash collection. There is a private
Zucchini Vs. Bear
Last summer I wrote about some defensive uses of zucchini here. Now I hear that zucchini is not only useful against dragons, but against bears as well. A couple of
The Harvester\’s Complaint
Today I pulled up the tomato vines and removed their wire cages. There were still green tomatoes on the vines, but I needed to get rid of the plants so
Googling The Granny Square
While I was carving my piece of stone one day last week, the thought of granny squares flitted through my brain. You remember granny squares–if you were a child in
In Which Common Sense Prevails
\”In creative work, time should not and cannot be taken into consideration,\” said William Zorach. He was one of the best American sculptors of the last century, so he must