“Sooo…..Did your innie become an outie?” Kate’s rocking the maternity farm overalls these days. She’s working on the cafe computer when I come in to start preparing food for the weekend. “Hell yeah!” “It goes back in, right?” I lift my shirt and show her my post-maternity paunch. “Sort of. It just kind of droops […]
Do What You Want.
Shannon Hayes, 40, doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do. I’m going through a box of newspaper clippings when I find this. It’s the opening line to a story about the health benefits of simple living in the Nov 5, 2014 edition of US News & World Report. I’m wondering if they fact-checked that […]
Gift or Affliction?
Sometimes I think it’s an affliction — This inability to listen to bullfrogs, watch fireflies, discern the call of a Sapsucker from a Pileated, to listen to my mother tell a story, to share my dad’s worries, to watch my children play, to ponder the world with Bob— Without trying to fit the pieces together […]
Brain Drain
I wonder if they have fireflies in Ireland. Supper’s long finished, and I’ve slipped out to the screen porch to catch a glimpse of the display. From the kitchen sink Bob bemoans that the Kyrgyz exchange students who flew back home two days’ prior missed the show. Erin Lavigne is missing it, too. Erin’s […]
Doing well. (?).
“Shannon, please, I would like to have a conversation with you.” Nazgul calls to me from farther back on the path, then hastens to catch up, her slip-on shoes sliding on the slick trail. The airlines have lost her luggage, and this is the 10th day she has had to make do with insufficient clothing […]
An Inconvenient Soup
He taps his credit card on the counter as he scans over the charges on the screen I’ve presented him. He gives a little nod at each price. Then I see him look down at the pint of split pea soup in his hand and furrow his brow before looking back at the screen. The […]
This Marriage
It’s 3am when his hand finds mine beneath the covers. He winds his fingers around mine, then pulls me close, wrapping his arms fully around me. We stay there a long time before he whimpers, “you had an affair.” I launch from the bed with a mighty “HA! You had it coming!!! You SSSSOOOOOOO had […]
Endless Growth
If you’re not growing, you’re dying. This aphorism has annoyed me since I heard it in my first farm business management class twenty-two years ago at Cornell. I heard it repeatedly in my entrepreneurship and human resource management classes, and again in the farm transition and business planning classes I took before we opened the […]
Enterprising Missionaries, Introverted Farmers
We saw the Book of Mormon at Proctors Theater in Schenectady this past weekend. It brought back lots of memories, and I just had to re-run this post in tribute…. When a couple of Mormon missionaries were going door to door, they didn’t expect to confront an angry famer with a shovel. But when they […]
Market Family
Never be late. It’s dangerous and costly. Don’t drive fast on the way down. There are speed traps on Route 30. Learn how to grill steaks, pork chops and lamb chops in three steps. Memorize this process. I’ve got 18 items on the list so far. When I step away from the computer, Bob takes […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- …
- 32
- Next Page »