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
No Cat Yet
Three months after Wolfie\’s demise, we\’re still a one-dog, two-fish household. I had forgotten how simple life with a single dog, especially a single small dog, can be. Gone are
One Dog, Or Two?
When Wolfie expired quietly next to his water bowl last month, I asked the vet to wait before taking his body away. I wanted Bisou to see him one last
Like A Tree Shedding Leaves
Soon the time will come when I can no longer play the recorder. Well, maybe not soon, but the time will surely come, if I keep on living. And it
3,672 Stitches
Three years and 3,672 stitches later, the needlepoint pillow I started from an Ehrman kit is finally finished. I didn\’t actually count the stitches. I just multiplied the number of stitches
My Mother Says…Continued
After her story of the Spanish Civil War, my mother begins to tell how she met my father. She might never have come across him if my grandmother had been
My Mother Says…continued
The three years of the Spanish Civil War, my mother says, were the worst of our lives. But they were nothing compared to what your father, whom I didn\’t meet
My Last Big Dog
I will miss that long black body that was forever blocking, it seemed, my way around the house. I would lift my knee and step over him and he would
My Mother Says…continued
Last fall I began retelling here my mother\’s memories of growing up in a Catalan village in the years leading up to the Spanish Civil War. You can catch up
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
No Cat Yet
Three months after Wolfie\’s demise, we\’re still a one-dog, two-fish household. I had forgotten how simple life with a single dog, especially a single small dog, can be. Gone are
One Dog, Or Two?
When Wolfie expired quietly next to his water bowl last month, I asked the vet to wait before taking his body away. I wanted Bisou to see him one last
Like A Tree Shedding Leaves
Soon the time will come when I can no longer play the recorder. Well, maybe not soon, but the time will surely come, if I keep on living. And it
3,672 Stitches
Three years and 3,672 stitches later, the needlepoint pillow I started from an Ehrman kit is finally finished. I didn\’t actually count the stitches. I just multiplied the number of stitches
My Mother Says…Continued
After her story of the Spanish Civil War, my mother begins to tell how she met my father. She might never have come across him if my grandmother had been
My Mother Says…continued
The three years of the Spanish Civil War, my mother says, were the worst of our lives. But they were nothing compared to what your father, whom I didn\’t meet
My Last Big Dog
I will miss that long black body that was forever blocking, it seemed, my way around the house. I would lift my knee and step over him and he would
My Mother Says…continued
Last fall I began retelling here my mother\’s memories of growing up in a Catalan village in the years leading up to the Spanish Civil War. You can catch up