The picnic table was here when I moved in more than seven years back, and the summer and winters had taken their toll. So, finally, after years of putting it off, I spent a day sanding at an old man’s pace while Hazel kept watch and looked on. Rot had eaten its way up one … Read more
“The sea is a different sort of enemy. Unlike the land, where courage and the simple will to endure can often see a man through, the struggle against the sea is an act of physical combat, and there is no escape. it is a battle against a tireless enemy in which man never actually wins; … Read more
It’s a start. For the past couple of days I’ve been hauling rocks from wherever I could find them to my fire pit alongside the swamp. It’s a work in progress. A rich source for the stones has been the stream that runs along part of my western boundary before spilling through a culvert that … Read more
Six days after the launch of Spring 2025 the feelings of unremitting illness molted like an outgrown snake skin and fell from me long enough, at least, for me to take the motorcycle out for the first time in two months, maybe three. Who can remember? Winter and sickness are alike in being oppressive to … Read more
All has become a boggy black bitterness thick with infectious insect swarms: the headlines, the subheads, the first graf and the last. All of it. The smirking vice president at the Kennedy Center amid boos. The head of Homeland Security in western boots, tight jeans, dark mascara and a scornful frown. All of it. The … Read more
With eight years of experience of winter in my section of the North Carolina mountains, you’d have thought I’d seen every version of cold this section of country could offer. It ain’t so. There’s cold and then there’s 2025 cold. So, yea, it’s been cold this year and cold during the tail end of 2024. … Read more
After years of an off-on abusive relationship with Facebook, I left that social media wasteland for good a few days before the second inauguration of Donald Trump on Jan. 20, 2025. I wasn’t the only one. The nation’s billionaires had begun obsequious pilgrimages to the Dark Lord’s Florida castle. Among those eager to kiss the … Read more