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
Wolves At The Door
This time of year, in Vermont, all the outdoors tries to come indoors. People complain about the hordes of field mice that squeeze into basements, attics and walls, there to survive
What\’s Left To Eat?
Every few months a new item is added to the list of Foods That Can Kill. Here are some of the ones that come to mind: –Salt, because it gives you
About Gray Hair
Looking at the photo of my recent 50th high school reunion, I noticed that what hair there was on the men\’s heads was uniformly gray. On the other hand, while all the
A Fish Named Salome
I\’ve been avoiding writing about this for a couple of weeks because the subject will require descriptive powers that may well be beyond me. But I cannot keep it to
Summer Better End Soon…
And then I can put my cat o\’nine tails down and get back to writing. The cat o\’nine tails is the implement with which I castigate myself for processing vegetables
To My Garden Helper…
Dear V, Remember those beans you helped me plant when you were here? First we scratched up the dirt and mixed in the chicken manure. This was to make sure that when
Of Carrots, Socks, And An Anniversary
I think about this every year on our wedding anniversary, but this year, on the 45th, I thought about it a lot: one spring long ago I planted carrots in
In Flagrante Frogs
Things are heating up in and around our pond. The frog population is booming and, sensing the coming of fall, the alpha frogs, if there are alphas among amphibians, are mating
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
Wolves At The Door
This time of year, in Vermont, all the outdoors tries to come indoors. People complain about the hordes of field mice that squeeze into basements, attics and walls, there to survive
What\’s Left To Eat?
Every few months a new item is added to the list of Foods That Can Kill. Here are some of the ones that come to mind: –Salt, because it gives you
About Gray Hair
Looking at the photo of my recent 50th high school reunion, I noticed that what hair there was on the men\’s heads was uniformly gray. On the other hand, while all the
A Fish Named Salome
I\’ve been avoiding writing about this for a couple of weeks because the subject will require descriptive powers that may well be beyond me. But I cannot keep it to
Summer Better End Soon…
And then I can put my cat o\’nine tails down and get back to writing. The cat o\’nine tails is the implement with which I castigate myself for processing vegetables
To My Garden Helper…
Dear V, Remember those beans you helped me plant when you were here? First we scratched up the dirt and mixed in the chicken manure. This was to make sure that when
Of Carrots, Socks, And An Anniversary
I think about this every year on our wedding anniversary, but this year, on the 45th, I thought about it a lot: one spring long ago I planted carrots in
In Flagrante Frogs
Things are heating up in and around our pond. The frog population is booming and, sensing the coming of fall, the alpha frogs, if there are alphas among amphibians, are mating