Category Archives: Other
Mother’s fruitcake for Christmas and always
Family recipes are inherited like sepia photos of relatives who passed long ago, meant to savor the memories. None is more precious to me that a fruit cake. My last edition came out of the oven months before Christmas and … Continue reading
Into the Wild at Knepp Estate
Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell loved to travel from West Sussex to the fauna of wilder places in the world. No longer. They have re-envisioned their ‘backyard’ as semi-wilderness. Some backyard! They own the Knepp estate of 3,500 … Continue reading
Death of a Lawn Mower
The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald knew that Americans find public expression of their successful lives in a neatly groomed lawn. Jay Gatsby was so horrified at Nick Carroway’s ragged lawn next door that he sent his gardeners over to mow … Continue reading
My Neighbor's Maple Syrup Sugar Shack
There’s a family I know in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia that has made maple syrup for over a century. As they are now short-handed of youngsters leaving for city work and the retainers get older and frailer, I … Continue reading







