The Way to the Clearing

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

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

  …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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(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

…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

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

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

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

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

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

The other morning Eric rose at about 5:30 to take the poodles out to “do business.” The day before, he had been working on digging out a stump in the front yard above the garden wall, over-looking the pond. Planning to work on it more the next day, he left the dirt piled around the … Read more

Yesterday afternoon, as we made our way back down the driveway from an errand run, and turned the final corner that approaches the Clearing, we startled a moose feeding on aquatic vegetation from the pond bottom. For a split second, as she rose from the pond, we didn’t comprehend what we were seeing. A moose! I … Read more

I know…what on earth is she talking about?? (Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.) We’ve all heard  the term, and have surely experienced the phenomenon, “bed head.”  (I have bed head at least every other day now, as shampooing and blow drying every day just takes too much time away from BEING AT … Read more

Waiting for one of these little buggers to hold still for a photo is no small exercise in patience. This swallowtail is much more cooperative.     Irises everywhere. So much beautiful color. Love this pretty flower, but I have no idea what it is called. Anyone? We were making our way down the driveway … Read more

Jack peeking out of the Pulpit.   Beautiful, deep purple lilacs.   Pretty little garter snake, out to soak up some photons after the cold rain.   Eastern newts basking in the pond.   Momma robin’s pride and joy.   As yet unidentified flying object at the Clearing…  

It has been five days since the Fateful Tick Bite, and Eric does not have an inkling of a target on his back (unless there is a figurative one for some undisclosed criminal activity I don’t know about), so we held a trial, and Betty, still having the damning evidence of Eric’s DNA hanging out … Read more

We have acquired our first tick. He (or she?) is in a plastic cup with a trivet on top. (This is in case an infection ensues—we can have the tick examined for whatever disease it might carry.) I found her (let’s assign a gender) sucking blood from Eric’s back the other sunny afternoon during “tick … Read more

It’s hard to know where to begin. First off, let me say I had planned on at least one more post before reaching our destination — something along the lines of “Keep on Trekkin’, Baby!” — with humorous stories about our adventures and poodle foibles along the way, through the Great Plains, the Mid-West, Upper … Read more

So, I guess, in a way, I’ve been “trekking towards the Clearing” since I came into the world just after midnight, during a thunderstorm, on July 30th, 1954.  During the “baby boom.” It’s rather surreal to reach the tender age of sixty, and feel you have finally found the place where you belong. I suppose everything … Read more