Category Archives: Blog

Late February

The sun rises a little higher in the sky every day. With no foliage to shield its glare, it exposes the worst of winter’s detritus: the glint of a beer can on the side of the road, a sudden spread … Continue reading

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Snowy night

If I happen to be outside at the end of the day — usually when dusk is beginning to fall — I’ll often hear the gentle, haunting cry of a barred owl: Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you? … Continue reading

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Rain, year’s end

Except for a light dusting at the beginning of the month, it’s been a snowless December in the Berkshires.  Though hardly a dry one. The unusually inclement year is doubling down as it nears its end with rain forecast almost … Continue reading

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In plain sight

All summer long a pair of blue jays flitted around one of our espaliered pear trees, hopping from the barn gutter to the ground to the top limb of the tree where they’d disappear into its leafy shadows. Despite all … Continue reading

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Haunted house

Steepletop, the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay from 1925 until her death in 1950, is just over the hill from us in the Berkshires. A decade or so ago, after an extensive fundraising and restoration effort by the Millay … Continue reading

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A pilgrimage

We drove up to Provincetown on a recent trip to the Cape. The place was still in a summer mood with traffic bumper to bumper on Commercial Street in the East End and tourists lining up for ice cream on … Continue reading

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Queen Anne’s Lace

Ranks of Queen Anne’s Lace have taken over the wildflower field this year — tall, pale, and lithe as ballerinas. This August’s endless rains have brought them to their knees time after time, but by morning they’ve sprung up again … Continue reading

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One perfect rose

Growing roses in the Berkshires is a thorny proposition at best. The season is too short. The winters too long. The weather unpredictable throughout the year. This summer, June was one endless dry spell while most of July seemed to … Continue reading

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Strawberries

I wish I could say that I grew these.  They look delicious, don’t they?  So sweet and juicy. The ones I did grow were coming along quite nicely, tiny white and yellow flowers abloom, bees bobbing among the bounty. The … Continue reading

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When Lilacs Last …

Lilacs are flowering everywhere in the Berkshires now — in front yards, along the roadside, in a fallow field where a house once stood. Though seemingly delicate and fragile, lilacs are quite hardy and can live well into their seventh … Continue reading

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A Wing and a Prayer

The phoebes are busy setting up housekeeping under our eaves.  All day long they swoop and whistle to each other — phoebe, phoebe — and pick through the dead grass to line their nests. They’re usually the first of the … Continue reading

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Wild thing

Early one recent morning, I looked out the kitchen window and saw an enormous cat sitting in the breezeway between our house and garage. Its back was towards me, but I could tell that it was watching the bird feeders, … Continue reading

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Month of despair

It seemed for a time, for most of January actually, that winter had passed us by. We racked up weeks of mild weather when the occasional rain segued into snow which melted politely away by morning. The daffodils started to … Continue reading

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Snowfall in the Afternoon

I love the way snow transforms the world around us in mysterious and beautiful ways. How the mountains disappear into the sky and the fields swell with drifts.  How the limbs of the spruces become draped with ermine and the … Continue reading

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