Category Archives: outdoors
Loss
I took this photo almost a year ago. The winged sumac was getting redder and bolder and I was looking forward to getting another shot. Monday morning I met a young guy with a brush cutter at just this spot. … Continue reading
Early Fall Color
Inspired by Farmer Tom of Wishetwurra Farm (up the road from me apiece in West Tisbury), I’ve been packing my little point-and-shoot whenever Travvy and I go out. Fall in New England raises expectations high. We’re famous for our fall … Continue reading
Cider Sunday
Leominster, Massachusetts, proclaim the signs on the interstate, is PIONEER PLASTICS CITY and BIRTHPLACE OF JOHNNY APPLESEED. How could anyone not love that juxtaposition? Johnny Appleseed, né John Chapman, didn’t just plant seeds. He started apple-tree nurseries and supervised them … Continue reading
Pen Not for Hire
I write to make sense of the world. I generally don’t write for money. If someone wants to pay me for what I’ve written, hey, fine, no problem, but I don’t write for hire. There are a couple of reasons … Continue reading
Whacked by an Owl
I got home from writers’ group a little after nine last night. The downstairs outside light was on, but both the deck and the apartment were dark. Getting out of the car, I couldn’t see Travvy but I knew he … Continue reading
At Sepiessa
Late yesterday afternoon I took Trav to the M.V. Land Bank’s Sepiessa Point Reservation so he could get his paws wet and we both could see something other than the same old same-old. Sepiessa is a great spit of land … Continue reading
Poison Ivy
The undersung green in the landscape. Everyone rhapsodizes about the coming of spring, but no one rhapsodizes about poison ivy. There’s a lot of it out there. It climbs up trees, it lurks under scrub oak and huckleberry, it even … Continue reading
I Say It’s My Birthday
. . . because it is, for another couple of hours. Some years I take my birthday off. This year I didn’t. I’m drowning in work. I can’t afford to take a day off — but I didn’t really want … Continue reading
Green Green
The unfolding of spring this year has been unusually entrancing, or maybe it’s just that I’ve been more-than-usually entranced. In winter, I packed my little Canon PowerShot on late-afternoon walks when the gathering clouds promised a vivid sunset. These days … Continue reading
Ghost Trees
I thought I’d missed the ghost trees this year. Their white flowers flicker off in the woods before the oaks start leafing out. They catch the corner of my eye as I drive down State Road. Spring is coming, they … Continue reading
From the Seasonally Occupied Territories . . . 