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Tag: Gary

Bleak House by Charles Dickens
An end to Bleak House

An end to Bleak House

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Confession: If you’ve followed these blog posts through the years, you may remember that 14 months ago I started reading Charles Dickens’ Bleak House following the author’s original monthly-installment schedule from 1852-3. His novels didn’t get released as a complete volume until after his readers had endured many months of three- or four-chapter installments trickling to them in magazine form. As much as the concept of following the original schedule, and stretching out Bleak House over 20 months appealed to…

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Tiny fawn nibbling leaves in our backyard
The fawn

The fawn

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This morning, between rowdy thunderstorms, I heard an odd sound. Gary and I were sitting together in our sunroom, gazing into our backyard, which – after all the recent rain – looks like a jungle. The noise was pitched high enough that Gary couldn’t hear it. Years of high-frequency milking machines will do that to you. It almost sounded like an alarm: two tones in fairly rapid succession and then silence. By late afternoon, I’d forgotten all about it. Then…

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2012 solar eclipse
‘Eclipse’

‘Eclipse’

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In the last few days before today’s total solar eclipse, I couldn’t resist checking to see if Mom had ever written a poem about this all-too-rare occasion in nature. Sure enough, she had. But, as often as she wrote about the moon, that’s not what this poem from 1971 was about. Eclipse I saw two wagons passing by the sea:one full of letters from my love to me.The other held a cargo of such strange designthat I could only pray…

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Easter Egg Radishes photo courtesy Jorge Luis Zapico https://www.flickr.com/photos/jorgezapico/
‘Wishing for Radishes’

‘Wishing for Radishes’

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Now that we have a sunroom, Farmer Gary and I notice daily we have several new patches of disturbed earth outside. It’s time to decide what to plant there. We brought up the topic while visiting with John, Aubrie, and Cameron last week. Aubrie loves to garden and is always great with gentle advice – be it regarding fruit, vegetables, or flowers. It’s always fun for John and me to observe our spouses dig in and discuss fertilizer, alkaline levels…

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shamrocks
A book’s gift

A book’s gift

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Books make wonderful presents. Books for birthdays. More books for Christmas. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. Farmer Gary and I take it to the extreme, with books for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter … you get the picture. Around our house, most books are one-and-done. Upon completion, the volume goes back on the shelf or, occasionally, into the donation basket. But once in a while, there’s something about a book that is almost haunting. A single reading is not enough….

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1961 Mom and Hercules in Vermont
The Rain Train

The Rain Train

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It was close to midnight the other evening when I heard it. A train whistle. In the far-off distance. I love the sound of a train, especially at night. It’s so comforting. I asked my musical brother Dave if he knew exactly what chord the whistle plays. Here’s his reply: I’ve heard a lot of different chords from train whistles, but my favorite (which I’ve heard quite a bit) is a major chord with an added 6th, like F-A-C-D. The add-6 chord…

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Silas Marner
Life-changing books

Life-changing books

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Although I rarely try to theme each month’s book choices, in January it seems each told the story of transformative life changes, whether in war, living on the land, or in the aftermath of death. Book 1: One Man’s Meat by E. B. White Before E. B. White wrote Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, he wrote a series of columns for Harper’s Magazine. These chatty essays described his new life on a farm in Maine. Up until that point in…

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The Farmer and the Newspaper
Newspaper Day

Newspaper Day

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Farmer Gary loves to read the newspaper. Always has. In fact, he’s declared Wednesday to be Newspaper Day each week, as that’s the day most of the weekly papers arrive in the mail. Each Wednesday, Gary dashes out to check the mailbox, then takes over our breakfast bar with his stack and works his way through the periodicals. Sadly, many of the dailies and almost-dailies he grew up reading are no longer … well, appealing. … but there are still…

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sunroom construction
Fourteen windows

Fourteen windows

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I’ll say it before anyone else brings it up: Why would a couple of Empty Nesters add on to their home now that there are only two occupants? Actually, I didn’t happen upon the real reason until after we’d “moved in” following a long summer of loud construction. Why? Because the view is glorious! The east side of our house faces the forest, yet our house’s windows on that side just didn’t do the trick. We needed more windows. Lots…

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Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Six books of sorrow

Six books of sorrow

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As I finished up each book this month, I’d tell Farmer Gary: Time for a lighter book. But it wasn’t the weight of the volume that needed changing. With horrifying acts of terrorism around the world and crazed gunmen here in the U.S., it was time for an escape. Somehow, though, each new book was also filled with sorrow. Book 1: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque The title was so familiar, but I’d never before…

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