I know a family who celebrates the vernal equinox by cross-country skiing for 12 hours from sunup to sundown. Today I celebrated the blinding, healing sun while walking back and forth between the house and the sugarhouse (as I… Read More
Eye Gap and Crucial
WEATHER: It snowed for a week and then the sun came out. The sky today was blue as can be. Even the snow was blue down deep in the holes made by my ski poles. HOW’S IT RUNNING? The trees are buttoned up and have been since March 6th, except for one mild afternoon… Read More
Broiled Oranges with Cardamom Syrup. Maple Glazed Pecans.
Anyone visiting the Nebraska Knoll sugarhouse may note the bag of oranges on the blue counter. We all snack on oranges since they juicily offset the pore-pervading maple bouquet. The citrus cuts the sweet. Maple Trout Lilli ventures into the realm of maple and orange with a fresh sense of the possible (and the elegant).… Read More
Slowly to exhale away
“As early as 1663, the great English chemist, Robert Boyle, told the learned world of Europe that ‘There is in some parts of New England a kind of tree…whose juice that weeps out of its incisions, if it be permitted slowly to exhale away the superfluous moisture, doth congeal into a sweet and saccharin substance,… Read More
Super Hero Muffins
As you drive into Nebraska Valley, first on the left is a house where baby lambs frisk about near their mamas. At the far end of a field you may see the lights on in the kitchen of a yellow house settled at the top of fifteen broad stone steps. When I drive by towards… Read More
At Full Throttle
WEATHER: At noon Wednesday the thermometer registers 50 in the shade. Yesterday was cooler at 40; it stayed stuck on 40 all night. It froze briefly the previous night. HOW’S IT RUNNING? The trees have fully awakened; sparkly sap pounds into the tanks night and day from the 10,000 individual maple tree pumps. BOILING STATUS:… Read More
Let The Games Begin
Dear Reader, Out the window on this Monday morning after the final day of the 2018 Olympics, a squirrel sprints across the snow. Old Blue, the 1964 International truck that is not blue but green, rests angled beside the stack of pine chunks harvested from the road the day after the Halloween Wind Storm. Winter… Read More
The Wind Storm of 2017
November reeked of chain saws here at Nebraska Knoll. Gas and oil fumes percolated through Carhartt work pants, jackets, wool hats, and gloves. I asked the guys to leave them in the mudroom, or better yet, to air them out in the woodshed. November resounded of chain saws whirring at assorted pitches from all quarters… Read More
Newfoundland. Post Script
I told this story to a friend in the campground, Gillian of Saskatchewan, who knows the ways of First Nation people through her work as an alternative educator. She said that in Saskatchewan it would be a rare occurrence to give away the smudge dish and ceremonial feather. The tribe does not offer its secrets… Read More
Newfoundland. Part IV: The Gift
FIRE CIRCLE (Liturgy) AT THE LIGHTHOUSE, Part Four The Benediction: Kevin picks up his grandfather’s medicine bag from the blanket, pulls out grandfather’s ring, and rubs it between his fingers. “Am I thinking about the fight I had with my wife?” he asks. “Who am I thinking about?” “Grandfather,” says the blue-eyed woman from England. “Yis,… Read More
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