Caledonia

Two weeks ago Heathcliff and I walked down the mountain road to pick up the mail—our usual routine on days when I work at home and the weather is favorable. I opened the mailbox, and there was a package from my Aunt Margaret. It was the genealogy of my father’s family...

Cruel was the Snow

O, cruel was the snow that sweeps Glencoe And covers the grave o’ Donald O, cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe And murdered the house of MacDonald The tour bus driver navigated the one-lane, two-way roads through Glencoe, Scotland while our guide Graham Bruce...

On Sixty-Five

Early yesterday morning, as I sipped my coffee laced with milk and watched the dawn creep across the Rockfish Valley, I received a birthday present from Richard Rohr. “When you sit quietly and for extended times in nature, you see that everything changes,” he wrote in...

Weeding

At dawn this morning, before the heat of the day, I headed into the meadow in front of our house here at Vanaprastha. I wrote about the challenges of this meadow and ‘native plants’ in a post last spring. Ten days ago, the landscapers completed the installation. Now...