It’s summer and I’ve been trying to ride my bike for an hour or so every evening, for a number of reasons: I need exercise and biking spares the joints the way running doesn’t (until I crash), biking helps my body adjust to the heat (since I swelter in a hot little room all day), […]
“Corn should be knee-high by the Fourth of July,” is an agricultural adage applied to various states, but in the northern US where I’ve spent most of my life, it’s generally been a true and good metric for the kind of a summer we’re having in any given year. Cornfields are never far away in […]
Strange as it seems, Vermont has much in common with Louisiana. Both states have a relatively large city (Burlington/New Orleans) which in many ways dominates the state’s profile, but folks who live outside that city take pains to disassociate themselves from it. (“Burlington is close to Vermont,” is the refrain here.) Each state has a […]
Germany, with two wins and no losses, is looking like the team to beat in the Euro 2012 socc… er, football tournament now underway in host nations Poland and Ukraine. The Dutch team, with no wins, has been the surprising disappointment – so far. This ain’t over yet. I admit I’m not a big fan […]
Three weeks ago, I picked up two nucleus colonies of Vermont-bred bees up near the Canadian border and installed them in my back yard. It feels good to be an actual, rather than theoretical, beekeeper again. They say every beekeeper will make every mistake possible and in that regard, I imagine I’m a prodigy, after […]
No Environmentalists Need Apply
Many people on the political scene are anticipating Mitt Romney’s vice presidential choice in a state of high agitation and none are more agitated than I. Four years ago next month, I had just left the dentist’s office with a face full of novocaine when my boss’s boss called me on my cell and screamed, […]