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
Dog Redux
I know, I know. A mere two weeks ago I wrote here about my determination to embrace the dogless life. But then a strange thing happened: on December 29 I
Sister Dorothy Does a Makeover
Newly arrived in Birmingham, Alabama, I spent my freshman year drowning in a soup of cultural and linguistic confusion. I was the only foreign student in the Catholic high school
Revelation
On the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, the year I was eleven, my mother was braiding my hair when out of the blue she said, “You do know
The Dogless Life
My little red dog Bisou has been gone for three months. She is at peace, but me, not so much. You don’t let go of fifteen years of another creature’s
The Ostrich and the Owl
“What! You don’t listen to the news in the morning?” my judgy friend exclaimed, looking horrified. This was around the time of the Iraq war and, after decades of waking
Night Visitor
Saw the cat staring fixedly out the glass door to the backyard the other night, and went to investigate. Our birdbath is set right against the glass, to give my
Old Stones
“I miss old stones,” my father said. We were coming out of Sunday Mass at the brand-new church of Our Lady of Sorrows, in Birmingham, Alabama. It was an architecturally
It’s Time for Another Post about Cats
I may be wrong, but the cat may just be the creature to get us through these times. Don’t misunderstand me, I love dogs. But dogs are too much like
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
Dog Redux
I know, I know. A mere two weeks ago I wrote here about my determination to embrace the dogless life. But then a strange thing happened: on December 29 I
Sister Dorothy Does a Makeover
Newly arrived in Birmingham, Alabama, I spent my freshman year drowning in a soup of cultural and linguistic confusion. I was the only foreign student in the Catholic high school
Revelation
On the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, the year I was eleven, my mother was braiding my hair when out of the blue she said, “You do know
The Dogless Life
My little red dog Bisou has been gone for three months. She is at peace, but me, not so much. You don’t let go of fifteen years of another creature’s
The Ostrich and the Owl
“What! You don’t listen to the news in the morning?” my judgy friend exclaimed, looking horrified. This was around the time of the Iraq war and, after decades of waking
Night Visitor
Saw the cat staring fixedly out the glass door to the backyard the other night, and went to investigate. Our birdbath is set right against the glass, to give my
Old Stones
“I miss old stones,” my father said. We were coming out of Sunday Mass at the brand-new church of Our Lady of Sorrows, in Birmingham, Alabama. It was an architecturally
It’s Time for Another Post about Cats
I may be wrong, but the cat may just be the creature to get us through these times. Don’t misunderstand me, I love dogs. But dogs are too much like