Eric’s diary: April 5

Eric’s been journaling during our adjustment to these rapidly changing times, so I’ve created a page on The Way to the Clearing for him to post his thoughts. (For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) The sun shone brightly through the trees this morning making long, patient shadows. After warming the house … Read more

Eric’s diary: April 1 – 3

To go with the global mood right now, it’s been dreary and wet. Rain, snow, snow, rain, more rain, more snow, except for April 1st when I got to work out in the yard some. In fact, another rite of spring-is-almost-here, accomplished the day before yesterday, is raking up the “deposits” on the area of lawn … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 31

It snowed last night and everything this morning was highlighted in white with bright sun. Even in this it’s-supposed-to-be-spring season, it was the kind of snowfall that takes your breath away. And the sun warmed the land all day long. In the afternoon, I canned a gallon of maple syrup. I broke my thermometer (stupid), … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 30

I thought I saw a flash of light when lying in bed last evening, but it was so fleeting, it didn’t register. When Patti came in several moments later, there was a rumbling neither of us could pinpoint. I got up, went outside and shined the flashlight around. Nothing.  Back in bed, I thought I … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 27 – 29

(For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) Sap has been running steadily. I collected 45 gallons, tapped another tree, and out on the roads, homemade “tanker trucks” are numerous. These are filled with sap collected by landowners and delivered to big sugaring operations like Goodrich’s Maple Farm in Cabot on US Route … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 26

The latest entry in Eric’s 2020 Spring Diary.(For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) Plenty of coals this morning, but no kindling. Still, the fire in the main house started right up after stirring the coals and ashes with the fire poker and strategically placing two smallish logs on the embers glowing … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 25

Eric’s been journaling during our adjustment to these rapidly changing times, so I’ve created a page on The Way to the Clearing for him to post his thoughts. Here is entry number two. (For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) I left the damper open on the woodstove when we retired to the bedroom last … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 24

Eric’s been journaling during our adjustment to these rapidly changing times, so I’ve created a page on The Way to the Clearing for him to post his thoughts. Here is entry number two. (For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) Yesterday I didn’t get through the 30 gallons of collected sap, and those snow flurries? … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 23

Eric’s been journaling during our adjustment to these rapidly changing times, so I’ve created a page on The Way to the Clearing for him to post his thoughts. Here is entry number two. (For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) I’m going to boil today, very much a spring-is-definitely-coming endeavor. But, again, it didn’t feel … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 22

Eric’s been journaling during our adjustment to these rapidly changing times, so I’ve created a page on The Way to the Clearing for him to post his thoughts. (For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) After we all got up and took the poodly boys out back for their morning constitutional, the … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 21

The latest entry in Eric’s Spring 2020 diary. (For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) Ah, spring has arrived! Yesterday it was gray but warm, and I collected an additional 15 gallons of sap. Today it is cold—for a couple of hours this morning, temperatures continued to drop after I got up—but … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 20

Eric’s been journaling during our adjustment to these rapidly changing times, so I’ve created a page on The Way to the Clearing for him to post his thoughts. Here is entry number two. (For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) Eric’s entry: March 20 I exaggerated a bit yesterday. While the terrain is completely blanketed … Read more

Eric’s diary: March 19

Eric’s been journaling during our adjustment to these rapidly changing times, so I’ve created a page on The Way to the Clearing for him to post his thoughts. (For Patti’s blog posts, visit the homepage or click here.) Eric’s entry: March 19 There are few in the world today who don’t know how difficult these … Read more

Spring in the time of COVID-19

After working for almost two months on the west coast we flew back to Vermont this past Sunday, the spread of COVID-19 rolling like a wave across the country below us—a wave far from cresting. Our plane was nearly empty; it felt as if bodies had simply evaporated. We were supposed to fly home on … Read more

Pseudo Disneyland rides, MFAs, lightbulbs, and dreamlands come true

I thought I would take a moment to check in from sunny Chino, CA. We are thick in the throes of our 9-week (longest ever) winter training season, traipsing all over the state of California like gypsies, tramps and thieves — veritable wastewater vigilantes — our rental car packed to the bursting point with suitcases, … Read more

It snowed and it snowed and it snowed…

  …and after that, it snowed…this is what November looks like in northern Vermont.   My photo shoot with the Clearing, as she struts her stuff in her latest winter finery, another smashing Mother Nature original: There’s a kind of hush…   Pastel blues and whites become her.   Trees out-fitted in delicate lace.   … Read more

The power of the rain dance

So, this past August we do a rain dance in Sacramento, and a few months later on the other side of the continent, the skies open up and water pours down on us like five hundred pissing cows. Okay, I don’t mean to be crass. It’s a French idiom and I am sure it sounds much … Read more

Praying for rain

California has always been known for its breathtaking sunsets, enhanced by the colorful tint of car exhaust and smog—and lately intensified even more brilliantly by smoke and ash from surrounding northern California fires. On our first evening here in Sacramento, the sunset was spectacular. The fires are not near enough to be a threat to … Read more

Almost summer (solstice, two-thousand-eighteen)

And you thought I was never coming back. So I took a brief two-year hiatus. So sue me. (If you even remember who I am.) I began this blog four years ago to tell the story of Eric’s and my transition to the Clearing—but in truth, what I needed was to reverse the deterioration of … Read more

That’s not why I write

It is full-on summer at the Clearing. New flowers each day, moose-tracks in the blueberry patch, bunnies, wild turkeys, quail, a fisher cat (or maybe a mink?). A couple of deer. Frogs, pollywogs and cute, fat toads. Madame Snapper made her appearance again on the exact same date as last year (see my entry “A … Read more

Green

It snowed here three days before we left for California on April 30th. Less than a month later, as I sit in my cabin and type this post, it is 87 degrees. Ahhhh…the ever-changing climate of New England! Although, if memory serves, May wasn’t typically this hot when we were growing up.  Plus, we grew … Read more

Croak is what they do

In just a matter of about a week the daytime temperatures have risen by an average of about 30 degrees or more. It was 65 and sunny yesterday. Today promises even warmer temperatures. On the way from errands in Barre yesterday afternoon, we observed folks in tank tops and shorts. It’s still a little nippy … Read more

IMAX Theater at the Clearing

This has been an interesting “spring.” We think we’ve had more snow in March and April than we had all winter. Granted we were only here in winter during December and the first two weeks of January, but still. Not that it has accumulated to any degree this spring, it just feels as though it … Read more

Who knew trees do math?

(From a paper I wrote for my math 100 class.) The above photo collage, clockwise from top left, shows the mouth of the Selenga River Delta, an angiogram of a human kidney, a deciduous tree in winter, and a typical graphic of a fractal image. I find the similarity of the four images astounding. Before … Read more

Henny Penny, my face is falling (among other things)

…and I want to stop caring about that! We are two weeks away from heading back to sunny (well, actually quite rainy this coming week, according to weather.com) Southern California. I am excited to see my girls, and all our dear friends. However, as I sit here in my cabin by the propane heater with … Read more

Reading, writing, shopping, hunting, shooting (in no particular order)

Shopping is the elixir of a woman’s soul. I’m not talking about shopping for shoes or purses or dresses, although there are scores of women out there who would have me tarred and feathered—and tethered to the nearest pole in the town square (wearing shoes that did NOT match my purse, of course) as an … Read more

Fifty shades of sepia

My apologies for taking a powder the last several months. Maybe you have all abandoned ship. I hope not. It’s not like I didn’t want to write, and I even made a few lame attempts, but couldn’t seem to get any traction going. Of course, I have several great excuses, among them, our warp-speed class … Read more

Flying poodles and swami-wannabes

Here we are, as if beamed up from sultry, green Cabot, Vermont, and plopped down in the middle of dry, brown Southern California – the whole dreaded process of getting back here already a mere, distant hallucination. Isn’t that always the way with alien abductions? (Hey…wait a minute…I think those were poodles…) In truth, it was … Read more

Christmas in July

Every morning at the Clearing brings a fresh bounty of gifts from Mother Nature. Eric and I are in constant states of rapture over each summer day’s new offerings. The growing season is so short here, hence things grow very quickly. As Eric says, they really have to get after it. We leave for sunny (and … Read more

Will the Real Martin Luther King Please Stand Up?

Going a little “off Clearing topic” today. I recently posted on Facebook about President Obama’s very moving eulogy for Senator and Reverend Clementa Pinckney. Here is part of what I posted (if you already read it on FB, skip to below): “Had the first chance to listen to President Obama’s eulogy for the Senator and … Read more