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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. Got bored with teaching, took up running, and went into higher ed administration. 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.
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
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
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
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
Took a windy, chilly, definitely autumnal walk this afternoon. The ground is littered with crabapples and acorns, the trees’ contribution to the comfort of the squirrels in the coming season.
While we were living in Quito, my mother took me to the doctor for a checkup. At the end of the visit, as we were walking out, he called us
“Get your stick ready, Francina, I’m about to shift into second gear!” my father would say. Our car during the years in Ecuador, a venerable 1948 Dodge, had a number
It’s four in the afternoon, the summer of my ninth year. I tiptoe out of my room, into the silence of my grandparents’ farmhouse in Catalonia. My veterinarian grandfather is
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
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
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
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
Took a windy, chilly, definitely autumnal walk this afternoon. The ground is littered with crabapples and acorns, the trees’ contribution to the comfort of the squirrels in the coming season.
While we were living in Quito, my mother took me to the doctor for a checkup. At the end of the visit, as we were walking out, he called us
“Get your stick ready, Francina, I’m about to shift into second gear!” my father would say. Our car during the years in Ecuador, a venerable 1948 Dodge, had a number
It’s four in the afternoon, the summer of my ninth year. I tiptoe out of my room, into the silence of my grandparents’ farmhouse in Catalonia. My veterinarian grandfather is