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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.
Pound per pound, tiny Truffle has used up a lot of space in this blog since I adopted him in January. By comparison the cat Telemann, like many a firstborn
A few days ago I discovered a trove of dog training videos on YouTube, and my life has been enriched, and Truffle’s life transformed, by the abundance of available advice.
These days I often think about my grandmothers. I scrutinize my memories of them, trying to discern how they dealt with the problem of growing old. Although the age-defying technologies—cataract
Not a day goes by when I don’t ask myself, having read/watched/heard the news, what right do I have to be happy? Or, even putting happiness aside, what right do
Beside my grandfather’s farmhouse in Catalonia, there was a well. My childhood summers revolved around the house and its courtyard, the stables, pigsty, and chicken coop, but the heart of
Home from school in the afternoon, I would find my mother in the dining room, sitting close to the balcony of our apartment in the Art Nouveau quarter of Barcelona.
Back in March, in obedience to the State of Vermont guidelines, I took down the birdfeeders which I had hung from our eaves only three months earlier. The reason for
This week I almost succumbed to a case of adopter’s remorse. After three months of watching Truffle like a hawk from dawn to dusk, he is far from house trained.
Pound per pound, tiny Truffle has used up a lot of space in this blog since I adopted him in January. By comparison the cat Telemann, like many a firstborn
A few days ago I discovered a trove of dog training videos on YouTube, and my life has been enriched, and Truffle’s life transformed, by the abundance of available advice.
These days I often think about my grandmothers. I scrutinize my memories of them, trying to discern how they dealt with the problem of growing old. Although the age-defying technologies—cataract
Not a day goes by when I don’t ask myself, having read/watched/heard the news, what right do I have to be happy? Or, even putting happiness aside, what right do
Beside my grandfather’s farmhouse in Catalonia, there was a well. My childhood summers revolved around the house and its courtyard, the stables, pigsty, and chicken coop, but the heart of
Home from school in the afternoon, I would find my mother in the dining room, sitting close to the balcony of our apartment in the Art Nouveau quarter of Barcelona.
Back in March, in obedience to the State of Vermont guidelines, I took down the birdfeeders which I had hung from our eaves only three months earlier. The reason for
This week I almost succumbed to a case of adopter’s remorse. After three months of watching Truffle like a hawk from dawn to dusk, he is far from house trained.