Observations

Raise your hand if you looked in the mirror one day and realized—I mean finally admitted—that you were no longer young. You’d noticed the new wrinkles and gray hairs, but the prospect of growing old ...
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The wintering vineyard is an army of brawny wooden posts parading up and down the hillside, in tight row formation. The silhouetted trunks and canes, strikingly skeletal, are all that remain from a season of ...
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Nobody talks about letting go. The focus throughout my education and career had been on accumulation—of knowledge, friends, influence, material well-being. Then I came across the following quote. “In the end, only 3 things matter: ...
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Both my sons are great cooks and regularly cook family meals. They have favorite cookbooks and recipes. This is a far cry from the role my father played when I was growing up. My father, ...
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I was lucky enough to see the musical Hamilton on Broadway in New York. I have always loved history and was a history major in college. But this portrayal, of events from a period I thought I ...
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My mother taught me at a young age how to sew, embroider, and knit. I have done all three extensively over the years, but my favorite is knitting. When I was 7 or 8, and ...
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Harvest is over. No more the chatter of the pickers running to dump buckets brimming over with dark purple clusters into the large totes, or the rumble of the tractors ferrying the totes to the ...
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Joy comes in the form of a furry puppy whose tail wags when I say his name and whose big brown eyes look into mine and melt my heart. We decided to get a puppy ...
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In the 1940s, Aldo Leopold, the Wisconsin naturalist, defined planetary health as the capacity for self renewal. Sustainability wasn’t the buzz word then that it is now, but his definition of planetary health is the best I ...
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I never knew how interesting and fun chickens could be until I inherited several from my son. The one who captured my heart was Goldie, an aging Auracana hen. Here’s a picture of Goldie, perched ...
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Here’s the fantasy of retirement that I grew up with. Get up late, have a leisurely breakfast reading the newspaper, 18 holes of golf with friends, capped with a drink in the clubhouse afterwards. A ...
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What would have been unthinkable in my parents generation—the right to marry who you love, no matter the gender—has become legally acceptable. In my children’s generation, it will become mainstream. This cultural shift has made ...
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I’ve come to terms with a few things in my old age. Here are 7 of them: 1. Gone are the days when old age and death seemed far away. As friends my age die, ...
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This past weekend I brought my great grandmother’s samovar out of the closet, tarnished and dusty. I consulted the internet for cleaning vintage brass and copper and one of the suggestions turned out to be ...
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