Its been a busy weekend with our Annual Family Meeting on Sunday. There was so much talk that I never even thought about the camera until we were half way home with a new pair of grandsons, Anthony and birthday boy Drew (13!) from Texas. Then, yesterday while 'The Major' organized the boys to set up the blueberry frame, mow the lawn, and relax in the Cottage Ornee, a friend and I drove over to The Mount, Edith…
We enjoyed our 13 year old granson's company all last week - a very busy week. There was canoeing, dinner parties, cake baking, mowing lawns, feeding chickens and all manner of End of the Road activities. One day we returned to Birch Glen Stables which is practically around the corner for his second riding lesson. The first was last year, but he had not forgotten how to groom and put on the saddle. This year the lesson was…
Yesterday we went to Tyngsboro to celebrate the Fourth of July with friends, but most especially to celebrate our daughter's 50th birthday with her family. This is our third child to celebrate a 50th, the last two girls are not far behind. The birthday cake provided by Diane's best friend showed a hill with Diane on the downside. Diane laughed and asked me if I remembered the cake she had made for me on my 30th birthday? It…
Tonight, on my cable TV show Let's Talk, I am interviewing Mary Ellen Jepsen, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Buckland Library, about the new addition which is scheduled to open next week. This is a happy day for me because I served as librarian when the building process began in 2004. And it is a happy day for the town which finally has an ADA compliant library that also has much needed room for the…
My maternal grandparents immigrated from Sweden when both were in their teens. They rarely talked about their life there but did mention that all they had to eat was potatoes. When he was 70 my grandfather planned his first trip back to visit to his sister, but returned early. He said his sister did not like to cook, so she fried up a batch of potato pancakes every Saturday and parceled them out over the course of the…
New Year’s resolutions. No matter how dismissive we try to be, no matter how skeptical we become, there is something seductive and promising about the date of January 1, the beginning of a brand new year. I look at the blankness of the calendar’s pages, matching the blankness of the winter landscape and think about the ways I will fill the days of the new year, fill my days in the garden. The older I get the unhappier…
The need to find symbols for eternal mysteries lies deep in the human family. At this time of the year the landscape is bare and frozen. All the life of nature seems to be frozen and dead. Gone is the verdant green, brilliantly colored flowers, rushing waters. The days grow ever shorter; even the sun seems to be failing. Ever since the beginning of time humans have faced the terror of this seeming death and looked for hope.…
The tree is up and decorated. Each year I get so much pleasure and I add each ornament. The tree contains memories that go back more than 60 years. After my mother's death my brothers and I had to empty her condo and split up her belongings. There were no surprises until we got to a big storage closet in the garage that, among other things, held boxes and boxes of Christmas tree ornaments dating back to the…
Henry and I set out Saturday morning to cut our Christmas tree. Unfortunately, this photo does not capture the field of diamonds that surround our house, but it does capture our cat Holly who likes to hike with us. This time we had to stop and put her back in the house. We saw lots of animal tracks as we walked down the Rose Walk. I thought these were deer tracks, but Henry wasn't so sure. A fair amount of…
My youngest daughter Kate, formerly known as Kathy, requested that I reprise this column. I am amazed that I found hard copy; it was written on my old Kaypro and published in 1985. The year 1971 was important for me. In January I was a suburban housewife, busy with PTA, chaufferring the children, the Ladies Literary Circle, chauffering the children, and chauffering the children some more. By September I was divorced, settled in Greenfield with my five children…