Don’t even blink, or everything will be gone.
That fire-red inferno of a maple tree now ablaze in the front yard will be naked.
That birch tree whose fallen foliage will have already made a golden circular skirt on the still-green grass and its bared white arms will plead for a blanket of snow.
Blinding
That silver maple will […]
In August of 1976, Elizabeth Arrel Thompson and I strolled across her historic 200-year-old Arrel Farm on Arrel Road in Poland.
As we walked, bluebirds flitted around us, perching on fence posts, and we listened to them and to the quiet conversation of her royally bred Hereford cattle that grazed in lush pastures.
She quoted from Robert […]
Who remembers Who?
And although I didn’t plan to write about Who — the list on the kitchen table on which I jot notes about maybe column-fodder has a number of entries — a telephone call has made it necessary for those thoughts to wait.
I first wrote about Who in the Feb. 14, 2008, Farm and […]
Happy Halloween! In case you hadn’t noticed, even before Labor Day Halloween decorations were on shelves in stores and at even some houses.
Maybe we should just say Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year now to save time. As if time didn’t overrun us in its headlong rush — to where? — without […]
In the barn this morning, the silence was deafening.
Since May 25, barn swallows have kept the rafters ringing with their cheerful chatter and impromptu squadron flights.
Accustomed to my presence and Winnie’s, they seemed to respond to my “Pretty birds!” greetings, and I could stand quite near — at a safe distance, if you know what […]
Isn’t it reassuring, in this scary world, to open the pages of Farm and Dairy especially in fair time and to see pictures of the young people with their 4-H animals or their prize winning vegetables or blue-ribbon school projects and to know that one day, if they live up to their potential, the world […]
Does the word “relief” bring anything special to your mind except a slogan for an anti-acid?
Probably not, unless you grew up in the Great Depression, and there are getting to be fewer of us as the years fly by.
“Relief” was a government program to assist jobless families whose savings were gone, whose homes had been […]
All through the night, especially during those nights when sleep isn’t quite sleep but a semi-consciousness, sirens wail. The emergency room of a huge hospital is just a country block south of me.
Sirens scream 24/7 as law enforcement and fire department personnel do their dangerous duties.
During the day, there are loud motorcycles, cars whose mufflers […]
Once the Fourth of July is history, the rest of the summer seems to break all speed records in racing toward the end of the year.
Just last week, someone had the temerity to remind me that six months from that day would be Christmas! I did not thank her for that information.
But in this bi-polar […]
What with 4 1/2 inches of rain one afternoon and a severe colic or twisted gut three days earlier, I’ve come to the conclusion that Mother Nature has decided I need to be taken down a peg or two. Or three.
One thing about the rain, though, I can once again see the pond. The pasture […]
