tall clover farm

The new year has arrived and my slate is clean. I’m good as gold. After being up for an hour or two with some strong brew under my belt, hope still abounds, promise peeks through the window, and discovery is available on demand. I must confess some friends don’t share my sentiment, seeing the date as just that [...]

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Living on an island has its challenges, but it also has its rewards, revealing special moments that speak to the kinship of isolation and the camaraderie of everyone being in (and on) the same boat.  While commuting by ferry creates bottlenecks and headaches daily, it also fosters a bond, an unspoken appreciation that someone else shares your daily roundtrip odyssey. The smiles and nods to familiar [...]

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It’s a dark and lonely commute by ferry in the winter (as seen on the covered bow deck) Light at last! April 15, 2009 at 0623 PT, Mt. Rainier reveals itself May 01, 2009 at 0622 PT, ah…a daylight commute at last I bid “Good morning” to Mt. Rainier and toast the Olympic range on my return [...]

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I thought the last line in Shelley’s  Ode to the West Wind, a fitting title and tribute to the contrast in seasons as viewed from my back porch; in essence, what we have to enjoy, and what we have to look forward to in the coming months. A bigleaf maple dons its winter white, December 22, 2008 The same bigleaf maple [...]

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Each year I wonder if, when or where I’ll cross paths with the spirit of Christmas. Perhaps in a person, sometimes in a moment, always when I least expect it, the spirit of the season will reveal itself.  Usually as an observer, a bystander to generosity, whimsy or a simple act of kindness, I tuck the [...]

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  Morning light meets last night’s snow Last night as I returned home from the south end of the island, the snow was falling with a grace and magic usually reserved for the dreams of my sleeping hours. Flakes as large as feathers erased the sounds of man. The ferns and fir bent gently in their new [...]

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The chill of the evening cannot dissuade me from writing my first blog entry, not even at my desk upstairs. The heat in my house is most comfortable on the first floor where it remains insolent to most basic of nature’s laws: heat rises. Not so here; it loiters on the stoop with nary an inclination to ascend past my ankles, warm [...]

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