Hear ye, hear ye! The queens have emerged! We’re talking about bumble bees (genus Bombus). For several weeks each spring, any bumble bee you see is a queen – and very hard at work. She must construct her kingdom. Her mother (the previous queen), and most of her siblings will have perished. Unlike honey bees,…

Sugary water, Dripping, Dripping. Slowly filling up the buckets. Maple sap boiling, Until at last, Sugary syrup, Slowly moving. Delicious, Dripping on your pancakes. Maple sugar fills your mouth with joy. Pure Vermont, Pure love, Pure maple syrup. Maple is love because it’s made with teamwork, Everything’s better when you work as a team.

We all have our limits with certain things. Some people might call those boundaries. I like to call them non-negotiables. Try as we might to be fluid and flexible or in some instances, appear nonchalant, things can get under one’s skin. Something you once saw from a logical standpoint may now feel sensitive or emotional…

Rivers, Flowing, Gliding,  Hear the water peacefully flow over the rocks, Gliding down stream, Softly, Peacefully. If you listen close enough, you’ll hear a sound, like no other sound before: Kindness.  Keep in the hear of the river, kindness. It’s a sound that needs to be heard more.  Open your heart and deep inside you’ll…

When they say that life was slower “back in the day” they are probably right! It was slower because it took longer to do everything. I was thinking of that the other day when I warmed up lunch in the microwave. Back in the '50s my mother would put a casserole dish containing leftovers from…

I have always loved watching the first flowers of the year pop out of the ground and slowly, ever so slowly, make their way from infant hood into greenery, budding and then finally into the beauty that they have been concealing. My mom feels the same way about butterflies, but I love perennials. I get…

I’ve had countless friends in my life. Some have stuck around for decades, while others were gone in a matter of months. But what I’ve realized is that the length of time of any friendship is not indicative of the friendship’s worth. Take Danny, for example.  Danny and I met in kindergarten and were friends…

Why do ants suddenly appear every time spring is near? Just like bees, they long to be close to you – especially if your home is made of wood. Carpenter ants (genus Camponotus) and the eastern carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica) both nest in wood and are frequent visitors to my log home. The Northeast is…

I have a simple mind. Full of everything I need to be well. All I have to do is use it. Whenever my younger sister Marcelle wants to spur me to action, all she has to say is; “Well, I know you can’t do it, but. . .  " and with childlike enthusiasm, I spring…

It’s darkest before dawn. This week brings the crescendo of the current eclipse season with a Scorpio Full Moon or Lunar Eclipse. Not only does this eclipse round out the current season, it’s also the last Scorpio eclipse we’ll see in about a decade. In any form of healing, whether that be physical, emotional or…

Trees, they sway in the breeze, they have twigs, branching out on all sides.  Each branch,  sprouting leaves, leaves of kindness of love for the world, love for the earth, for Mother Nature. People need to give more. More love, especially for the earth. Don’t let things blow away in the wind, hold onto them,…

I lay in my bed, the sun shining through the windows and turning our nighttime fortress into an unavoidable brightness.  The heat is off, but the weather hasn’t quite warmed up yet and I really don’t want to get out from underneath the covers until the sun has actually warmed up the house.   But…

  In 1984, my high school basketball team had one of the best records in the state. My teammates and I had been playing together for years, so we were a well-oiled machine. We also had a diverse set of players that covered all the needed attributes for a championship team.  I was a tall,…

   Call it a flower or call it a weed – clover is a plant everyone knows. Who hasn’t idled away an hour hunting for a four-leaf clover, hoping for good luck? A member of the legume family, clover is common in lawns and fields, in disturbed sites, and along roadsides. Of the world’s 300…

  Much has changed since last week. We exited the fiery inferno of Aries season under a cloak of darkness and entered the serene pastures of Taurus. Though this time around, they don’t look to be the fields of green and skies of blue to which we are accustomed.  There’s a lot of confusion, instability…