my green vermont

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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. 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.

Latest Posts

How To Make A Man Happy

A chapter from a 1950 home economics book has been making the rounds of the internet. It’s a list of do’s and don’ts addressed to wives searching for ways to

Read More »

Why Animals?

Walk down the street with a botanist and they will see trees. (Yes, I just used a plural pronoun with a singular antecedent. It’s politically correct, grammatically convenient, and Jane

Read More »

The Joys of January

When my children were small, we used to host Christmas. For a week or two every December, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and their dogs gathered under our roof. One notorious

Read More »

Flexing the Writing Muscle

During the past holidays I took a tiny break from writing. I spent two, maybe two and a half weeks without rummaging for topics inside my brain, or squeezing out

Read More »

On Cat Whiskers

My friend and I are  having lunch and, as often these days, bemoaning the state of the world. There are Gaza, and Israel, and Ukraine. There are the immigrants massed

Read More »

Solstice

May the return of the light ease your spirits. May the coming festivities lighten your heart. May you hear the angels sing.  

Read More »

Of Birds And Bears

It’s hard to get anything right these days. Take the feeding of backyard birds. What more innocent pastime can there be? And it’s more than simply entertaining. It is—or at

Read More »

The Boy Who Cleared the Dishes

The boy who cleared the dishes for his mother at my first Thanksgiving in America was not particularly handsome. His name was Tom, and I don’t think he said a

Read More »

Latest Posts

How To Make A Man Happy

A chapter from a 1950 home economics book has been making the rounds of the internet. It’s a list of do’s and don’ts addressed to wives searching for ways to

Read More »

Why Animals?

Walk down the street with a botanist and they will see trees. (Yes, I just used a plural pronoun with a singular antecedent. It’s politically correct, grammatically convenient, and Jane

Read More »

The Joys of January

When my children were small, we used to host Christmas. For a week or two every December, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and their dogs gathered under our roof. One notorious

Read More »

Flexing the Writing Muscle

During the past holidays I took a tiny break from writing. I spent two, maybe two and a half weeks without rummaging for topics inside my brain, or squeezing out

Read More »

On Cat Whiskers

My friend and I are  having lunch and, as often these days, bemoaning the state of the world. There are Gaza, and Israel, and Ukraine. There are the immigrants massed

Read More »

Solstice

May the return of the light ease your spirits. May the coming festivities lighten your heart. May you hear the angels sing.  

Read More »

Of Birds And Bears

It’s hard to get anything right these days. Take the feeding of backyard birds. What more innocent pastime can there be? And it’s more than simply entertaining. It is—or at

Read More »

The Boy Who Cleared the Dishes

The boy who cleared the dishes for his mother at my first Thanksgiving in America was not particularly handsome. His name was Tom, and I don’t think he said a

Read More »