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
My Father’s Silence (continued)
When the war was over, my father, no longer having to hide from the “Reds,” was able to play the violin again. By 1941 he had resumed life as a
My Father’s Silence (continued)
The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939. On February 21st, Franco, escorted by his notorious Moorish Guard, entered Barcelona to lead a victory parade. Down the elegant Passeig de Gràcia
My Father’s Silence
This was the only thing he ever said to me about those years: “We were all so hungry that at night, before going to bed, we would go to the
Of Bra Straps And Bed Hair
I spent an unconscionable amount of time in my youth obsessing about bra straps. I could have been reading Proust or studying calculus, but instead I was worrying about whether
How To Make A Man Happy
A chapter from a 1950 home economics book has been making the rounds of the internet. It’s a list of do’s and don’ts addressed to wives searching for ways to
Why Animals?
Walk down the street with a botanist and they will see trees. (Yes, I just used a plural pronoun with a singular antecedent. It’s politically correct, grammatically convenient, and Jane
The Joys of January
When my children were small, we used to host Christmas. For a week or two every December, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and their dogs gathered under our roof. One notorious
Flexing the Writing Muscle
During the past holidays I took a tiny break from writing. I spent two, maybe two and a half weeks without rummaging for topics inside my brain, or squeezing out
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
My Father’s Silence (continued)
When the war was over, my father, no longer having to hide from the “Reds,” was able to play the violin again. By 1941 he had resumed life as a
My Father’s Silence (continued)
The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939. On February 21st, Franco, escorted by his notorious Moorish Guard, entered Barcelona to lead a victory parade. Down the elegant Passeig de Gràcia
My Father’s Silence
This was the only thing he ever said to me about those years: “We were all so hungry that at night, before going to bed, we would go to the
Of Bra Straps And Bed Hair
I spent an unconscionable amount of time in my youth obsessing about bra straps. I could have been reading Proust or studying calculus, but instead I was worrying about whether
How To Make A Man Happy
A chapter from a 1950 home economics book has been making the rounds of the internet. It’s a list of do’s and don’ts addressed to wives searching for ways to
Why Animals?
Walk down the street with a botanist and they will see trees. (Yes, I just used a plural pronoun with a singular antecedent. It’s politically correct, grammatically convenient, and Jane
The Joys of January
When my children were small, we used to host Christmas. For a week or two every December, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and their dogs gathered under our roof. One notorious
Flexing the Writing Muscle
During the past holidays I took a tiny break from writing. I spent two, maybe two and a half weeks without rummaging for topics inside my brain, or squeezing out