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
Making The Bed
Deep inside the reptilian center of my brain there lurks a housewife with an eye for the Martha Stewart touch. She\’s the paragon whose bathtubs invite long meditative soaks, and
When You\’ve Read All The Books
\”The flesh is sad, alas, and I\’ve read all the books,\” (La chair est triste, helas, et j\’ai lu tous les livres) yawned the French poet Stephane Mallarme a hundred
Zen Master Dog
He still wags his tail hard enough to knock wine glasses off the coffee table and small children off their feet. He still gets excited at the prospect of going
High Humidity Hair
\’Tis the season of hair complaints. Wavy hair turns curly, curly hair curls tighter, and straight hair does strange things. Many women hate their hair about now and rate it
Gardening In My Pajamas
These days the only way to get any gardening done is to go out at the crack of dawn–well, almost–and work until the heat gets unbearable, around nine. The early
Espaliered Apricots
I come from an espaliering culture. The civilized landscape of my native Catalonia was striated with vineyards, the vines trained uni-dimensionally along wires. Fruit trees were espaliered on wires as
Bisou\’s Birthday
Am I turning into the kind of person who gives birthday parties for her dog? It appears that I am. This may be either a sign of my mental deterioration,
Rescuing The Garlic
Please believe me when I say that I am trying hard not to write constantly about the weather. In my last post, which was about the Pope and women\’s issues,
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
Making The Bed
Deep inside the reptilian center of my brain there lurks a housewife with an eye for the Martha Stewart touch. She\’s the paragon whose bathtubs invite long meditative soaks, and
When You\’ve Read All The Books
\”The flesh is sad, alas, and I\’ve read all the books,\” (La chair est triste, helas, et j\’ai lu tous les livres) yawned the French poet Stephane Mallarme a hundred
Zen Master Dog
He still wags his tail hard enough to knock wine glasses off the coffee table and small children off their feet. He still gets excited at the prospect of going
High Humidity Hair
\’Tis the season of hair complaints. Wavy hair turns curly, curly hair curls tighter, and straight hair does strange things. Many women hate their hair about now and rate it
Gardening In My Pajamas
These days the only way to get any gardening done is to go out at the crack of dawn–well, almost–and work until the heat gets unbearable, around nine. The early
Espaliered Apricots
I come from an espaliering culture. The civilized landscape of my native Catalonia was striated with vineyards, the vines trained uni-dimensionally along wires. Fruit trees were espaliered on wires as
Bisou\’s Birthday
Am I turning into the kind of person who gives birthday parties for her dog? It appears that I am. This may be either a sign of my mental deterioration,
Rescuing The Garlic
Please believe me when I say that I am trying hard not to write constantly about the weather. In my last post, which was about the Pope and women\’s issues,