Rains pelted the farm last night with vigor and a blast of sound and wind. The predictable decisions cast their shadow- raise the powered awning to avoid potential damage? If run up for storage, the cover from the blistering soggy heat would be saved from Nature’s passing wrath, but the seats at the outside […]

As you know, the rolling hills of Virginia’s green and lovely Piedmont can conceal adventure and mystery. They are not the same as up in the Blue swatch around DC. In fact, they sometimes don’t seem to be in the same space-time continuum. We used to live in Fairfax County, and that school district is […]

  Intern Note:We posted some words from contributor Marlow yesterday while the Boss was goofing off. We also got warned. Management has some hang-ups from the Compliance nerds bitching about just posting stuff. Our response was that management posts all kinds of dubious stuff without asking us, who actually look like America, whether it makes […]

Good morning, Gentle Readers! It has been quiet since the 4th of July, which used to be a fairly large holiday here in the United States of America. Which is not quite as united as they used to be, but that seems the nature of things these days. The President traveled yesterday to deliver an […]

Tuesdays are a cool day. Well, hot if you are in the Piedmont of Virginia. The Writing Staff could feel it’s embrace growing amid the mild wisp of smoke rising down by the Loading Dock, one of the centers of our human interaction. It used to be that way in the public buildings of your […]

We were doing the reading this bright and sunny Monday morning to try to grapple with what is going on in this wild and exciting world. The Writing Section betrayed bewilderment at some it- you know, grunts and intermittent groaning. A whiff of tobacco smoke from those most recently returned from the Loading Dock area […]

The humidity is hovering on the upper end of the dew point we like best. There will be a couple months of swelter coming, the steamy languor of Virginia’s Piedmont summer. But that is a constant in these parts. The other part that is not usual is the scope and drama associated with the generational […]

History was big this week. Yesterday, they carefully dismantled the statues down in Charlottesville of General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Those two were fairly big in Refuge Farm history, since General Lee started his campaign toward Gettysburg here, and just over at Cedar Mountain, Jackson got some of his reputation. The cast-metal statues […]

Do you still read the paper? I mean, do you trundle past the front door and actually open it to stoop and retrieve a bundle of newsprint to scan while pouring scalding coffee down your gullet? It used to be normal. It has been a journey. Decades ago, I was a New York Times subscriber, […]

I don’t know about your viewing habits, but as a retiree, I find ‘staying up late’ to be anything beyond eight o’clock in the evening. I try to catch Tucker Carlson when the evening medication has not dulled my senses overmuch, but can’t say I often make it beyond the introductory monologue. Last night was […]