Here he comes, rounding the table in the living room, toddling toward the inviting stairs. Our neighbor’s little boy just turned 1. There’s no one cuter. He’s so cute he has two nicknames, one for the country, one for town. Everything stops when he comes by to visit. I’m the frozen bagel man. My wife’s […]
John Valentine
Bio: John Valentine lives in Hillsborough, where he's written about life on and off the farm for more than two decades.Email: [email protected]
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Salad days
These are the salad days for the chicken coop. Daily visits from the compost bucket and garden basket have the girls clucking and exclaiming loudly every afternoon. Tomatoes and cucumber skins this week, corn on the horizon. “Yes! Ask your wife to make another batch of her gazpacho,” they call. “We love those basil tips!” […]
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Beach coma
The simple black and white state road sign next to the highway heading east signaled the correct path to the Brunswick County beaches. “Do Not Mow.” The family van, rusty lounge chairs strapped on the roof, dependable clunker bikes hanging off the back, hurtled to a sandy summer mecca. Everyone was excitedly looking forward to […]
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Found in a garden
“We’re not planting the corn and the beans ’til I get some fish heads,” announced my wife with a wry grin. I was not surprised. That’s how we plant. One day our brown and gray garden area looks barren and forgotten, passed over and tired. Twenty-four hours later, it’s the definition of nurturing and life […]
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Summer of love
Once upon a time, in a May long ago, six (or seven?) starry-eyed, excitable boys and girls left their predictable college lives and moved to the country. They found an old farmhouse surrounded by 60 acres of woods and fields, three miles from the nearest paved road. Rent was $30 a month. We had to […]
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Theme time green
It’s nighttime in the big country. A dog races off into the woods. Chasing a deer, a far away siren, a moon shadow? He doesn’t even know why. A green wave of running cedar tiptoes over an old firebreak, extending each day cross-country, nodding to early wildflowers, toward a rendezvous in fernland. The orange clay […]
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Fumes
On a cold, dark, windy, winter night, a man stops at an unfamiliar convenience store for a tank of gas. Maybe he could’ve waited until daylight, maybe not. He had some time to kill and mornings can get pretty crazy, what with carpools and lunches to be made. The gas pump handle seems a bit […]
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Full moon fever takes us outside
Bitter Moon. Peach Moon. Cold Moon. Long Night Moon. Twelfth Moon. Big Winter Moon. Moon When the Wolves Run Together. Every Native American culture has a special name for the still, giant beacon we’re seeing above us this week. To the Cherokee, it’s simply the moon that promises snow. It’s the full moon we all […]
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Time to crank up the power tools
“He can’t come to the phone right now. He’s grading the driveway.” I never should have opened that e-mail. Ever since my wife got me one of those gonzo walk-behind mowers advertised on late-night television, I’ve been “clearing brush.” I’m now fairly confident in fourth gear, not so good at sharp turns or finessing around […]
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Earthbound
Two things happened last week: The weather turned and our rural electric company took down a pair of dead oak trees along a right of way. These 50-foot-tall trees had recently dropped huge limbs on the roadway. They towered over power lines that served our neighborhood. Winter is on no one’s mind when they are […]
