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
On Listening
I am writing this three days before the election, and I have no idea what the world will look like by the time I post on Wednesday. Regardless of the
Fear of Food
“Americans,” Julia Child used to say in her inimitable warble, “are afraid of food.” Back when she had her TV show, from 1963 to 1973, we thought that the worst
Plant Blindness
Some people go through life seeing birds. “There’s a juvenile fork-tailed flycatcher!” they’ll say pointing to a brown speck of a bird high in the canopy. My spouse, on the
My Nemesis
She had blond, curly hair and a freckled face, the legacy of some Visigothic invader tangled up in the roots of her family tree, and to me she was as
Too Many Names
Mostly through no fault of my own, I have ended up with several versions of my name, to the point that people who have known me for years get confused
Learning from the Trees
I feel like a tree in autumn. Not a tree blazing away in reds and yellows as the chlorophyll level in its foliage plummets, but a tree in the leaf
Befriending the Moles
This is the kind of stuff that goes around in my mind all day long: IF I can just get the oil changed… clear up the credit card glitch… have
My Mother and the Tsantsa
The head-shrinking (or tsantsa) tradition among the Jivaro tribes of the Amazon was alive and well when my parents and I arrived in Ecuador in the 1950s. We first saw a couple
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
On Listening
I am writing this three days before the election, and I have no idea what the world will look like by the time I post on Wednesday. Regardless of the
Fear of Food
“Americans,” Julia Child used to say in her inimitable warble, “are afraid of food.” Back when she had her TV show, from 1963 to 1973, we thought that the worst
Plant Blindness
Some people go through life seeing birds. “There’s a juvenile fork-tailed flycatcher!” they’ll say pointing to a brown speck of a bird high in the canopy. My spouse, on the
My Nemesis
She had blond, curly hair and a freckled face, the legacy of some Visigothic invader tangled up in the roots of her family tree, and to me she was as
Too Many Names
Mostly through no fault of my own, I have ended up with several versions of my name, to the point that people who have known me for years get confused
Learning from the Trees
I feel like a tree in autumn. Not a tree blazing away in reds and yellows as the chlorophyll level in its foliage plummets, but a tree in the leaf
Befriending the Moles
This is the kind of stuff that goes around in my mind all day long: IF I can just get the oil changed… clear up the credit card glitch… have
My Mother and the Tsantsa
The head-shrinking (or tsantsa) tradition among the Jivaro tribes of the Amazon was alive and well when my parents and I arrived in Ecuador in the 1950s. We first saw a couple