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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.
Another morning, another failure. Again I have neglected to do what I had resolved: to be present through my daily routines. Present while making tea, present while Bisou ate grass
This spring, I have apprenticed myself to the beekeepers in the retirement community where I live. Ignoring Thoreau’s advice to beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, the first
Have you noticed how often the word “hobby” is preceded by “just a”? And the synonyms for “hobbyist”—dabbler, tinkerer, potterer—are all pejorative. Amateur, meaning a lover of something, is better,
“If I died,” my mother used to say, “your father would be terribly sad. But he would not die. Without music, though, he wouldn’t last a week.” She was right.
I don’t remember how we ended up with three guinea hens in our chicken coop. Someone must have given them to us, and being new to homesteading, I felt that
The year before I married, my fiancé’s Alabama grandmother, whose name was Ruby Violet, decided that she was going to sew me a bathing suit. And not just any bathing
In my recent apprenticeship as a beekeeper, I have learned one fact on which I’ve been dining out on for weeks. “How much honey does a single worker bee produce
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that my earliest memories of my musician father have to do with sound. Here they are in chronological order, from early infancy to toddlerhood:
Another morning, another failure. Again I have neglected to do what I had resolved: to be present through my daily routines. Present while making tea, present while Bisou ate grass
This spring, I have apprenticed myself to the beekeepers in the retirement community where I live. Ignoring Thoreau’s advice to beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, the first
Have you noticed how often the word “hobby” is preceded by “just a”? And the synonyms for “hobbyist”—dabbler, tinkerer, potterer—are all pejorative. Amateur, meaning a lover of something, is better,
“If I died,” my mother used to say, “your father would be terribly sad. But he would not die. Without music, though, he wouldn’t last a week.” She was right.
I don’t remember how we ended up with three guinea hens in our chicken coop. Someone must have given them to us, and being new to homesteading, I felt that
The year before I married, my fiancé’s Alabama grandmother, whose name was Ruby Violet, decided that she was going to sew me a bathing suit. And not just any bathing
In my recent apprenticeship as a beekeeper, I have learned one fact on which I’ve been dining out on for weeks. “How much honey does a single worker bee produce
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that my earliest memories of my musician father have to do with sound. Here they are in chronological order, from early infancy to toddlerhood: