The dogwood outside my window is popping like floured corn. Every hour I look at them, the gray-green buds are bigger, pinker four-petaled blooms. I should set up a time-lapse camera. Continue reading Spring has sprang
50 years, yesterday to an Ent
I think I started noticing trees when I lived in Alaska. I wrote a weekly column which my faithful companion, a Bald Eagle named “J Edgar,” delivered from our home in a hollow log to the editor of the community newspaper. Readers were not surprised “The Ol’ Tundra Stomper” (“Tundra Stomping” being Alaskan for “back country hiking”) had an eagle partner.
A-sauntering we should go
I was out for a drive and a wander when I happened upon a pair of turkey vultures, perched in a tree, staring down at the road, waiting for dinner to be served.
“Not today,” I said.
No Corona in the woods
The direction is “social distancing,” which seems to be defined as staying out of crowds and at least six feet away from any individual persons. No one but me has been in my car in a couple weeks, so … Continue reading No Corona in the woods
Letter from the wild side
A reader emailed me this week to report on some wild goings on around his home. He chose the place, he said, after seeing pheasants and deer on the land, and “too many species of birds … to list.” he said. Continue reading Letter from the wild side
Contemplating kids
Age begins to be an important thought-subject when you start running out of fingers to count the decades. It is easy to look at young folks and say, sometimes in the same breath, they are the future of our existence and they don’t know a darned thing. Continue reading Contemplating kids
Thoughts on a new normal
The manager of a 24-hour grocery was faced with a reality of calculations. Some people shopped late at night, but not nearly enough of them to pay the bills.
“I am about to change the hours,” he said. “We will open at 8 a.m. and close at 10 p.m.”
Some of his customers would complain for a short period, he said, then they would adjust to the new hours. Continue reading Thoughts on a new normal
No place for no trees
I visited my niece in Philadelphia last weekend. Wow! It was cold. A little scattered rain, but it was the wind funneling between the buildings that really cut into the weave of my fleece-lined jacket as we walked the half-mile to the BBQ joint where we ate a late lunch.
We passed a pipe from which steam poured out like fireplace smoke – and froze into an icicle on the grating mounted to keep critters and human fingers from touching the pipe. Continue reading No place for no trees
Zen and the art of conversation
The kid and his dad left Norfolk on the Harley touring bike, day after school was out, with a two-man tent and a couple sleeping bags bound to the luggage rack, and headed north. Continue reading Zen and the art of conversation
Lost and found
Winter of 1969. I remember because I had been married only since October, and was in the middle of a nine-month deployment to Rota, Spain.
The naval station had a flying club and I had a license, so I had been flying the club’s Aeronca Champ – a two-place single-engine airplane made of steel tubing and canvas –for several months, having a great time exploring the Spanish countryside. Continue reading Lost and found
History of development is in the waste piles
I learned about recycling from my mother. Dad was the inventor of the family, who bought what he needed to build what he wanted and then threw away the scraps. Mom just wanted the place to look clean so she could find the scraps she had saved in hopes that one day a thing once destined for the town dump would find usefulness in some new endeavor.
Continue reading History of development is in the waste piles
Winter is springing, already
So far, the snowthrower is safely near the shed door. I suppose I should bring it out and see whether it will start. I gave my snowshoes to my nephew for Christmas. It’s weird in the middle of January to be thinking Spring! already, two months in advance.
Distance is relative
It is a longer drive to the Walmart at the far edge of my hometown than to the one nearly 20 miles over a nearby mountain. The one at the edge of my town is only about three miles from my driveway.
Of Kudzu and poison ivy
One weekend a few years ago, a friend needed some brush cut behind his house and I had a gas-powered weedwacker that needed exercise. I three-bladed through two-inch vines like a scythe through a hay field, working up a sweat scattering poison ivy chips all over that part of York County. Continue reading Of Kudzu and poison ivy
Neighborhoods and straight lines
Christmas brought me a book store gift card, and I had half of one left over from last year, and now I’ve got three new books and $4 remaining on one gift card. The young woman who tallied my purchase said I could use the money in the snack bar. She didn’t mention, but I’m pretty certain, there is about enough on the card for one cup of coffee. Continue reading Neighborhoods and straight lines
A thrilling ride, and it ain’t over
This is the time of year for taking stock of experiences and places, and for celebrating having survived some of the riskier events.
Such as the time we left a four-engine airplane lying beside the runway halfway home from a U.S. Navy deployment to the Philippines. Continue reading A thrilling ride, and it ain’t over
When winter was, uh, WINTER!
Snow was falling in giant flakes when the Wednesday Morning Breakfast and Philosophical Society left the diner this week. Huge flakes left wet dents in the concrete where they splattered against the planet. Continue reading When winter was, uh, WINTER!
Christmas memories
A dark-skinned angel with golden wings and a billowing white gown looks down on our living room from atop the fir. She Who Must Be Loved elevated the angel in honor of her – our – granddaughters, hers because they were here when I got here, ours because, well, they’re ours now.
Christmas is like that – a time for traditions. Continue reading Christmas memories
You don’t lose weight eating salad
I’ve had a weight problem most of my life.
In the early days, it didn’t show much because as a kid I was really active, swimming and wandering in the woods and building houses and gardens – things you do when you live three miles from a town small enough that it’s three miles from the post office to the nearest house outside town. Continue reading You don’t lose weight eating salad
Thanks for the starlight
“Life is just a collection of memories, and memories are like starlight: they go on forever.” (Aurora Borealis) by C.W. McCall. in a tale of sleeping under lights that have been traveling most of forever, and have forever yet to go.
Most of my best memories involve travel. It’s been said that it’s the journey, not the destination that counts – unless the destination is Gransma’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. I have had a pretty fun trip, though there have been a few places where I’ve needed four-wheel-drive.