Editor’s Note: It is still the remarkable first week in November here in the present. This popped up in the old files as a sample of what used to be a normal part of the work day. It was useful to help remind me that things are always a little complicated in The Swamp. Here […]

(Rome’s first Emperor, Augustus (63 BCE – 14 AD), ruled for over 40 years; expanding territory and establishing many institutions, systems and customs that would endure for hundreds of years). What a week. What a year! I stepped out on the back deck to inhale my first lung of Marlboro tars this morning and saw […]

( Screenshot from the Hollywood production of The Mouse. I think they had a big cannon, too!) That may be the only partly political note in this- the reference to the old musical comedy millions of us in the Boomer generation recall from middle-school dramatics. It was one of those shows that featured great costumes, […]

Sorry- this is rushed and a bit late. I am election addled. I don’t know about you, but I took my opinions to bed early. I thought it unlikely we would have a new presidential designee before morning, and that was confirmed through the hours I twisted my quilt around me and dreamed of a […]

Willow Halloween Party 2013 Oh, OK. So we were sitting on the back deck overlooking the pastures. The raging waters of the recent hurricane remnant have retreated. I wondered if there was anything to give out, just in case tricker-treaters showed up at Refuge Farm. The general consensus was that none had been observed in […]

(This is not the water in our boundary stream. It is, as many things in this strange year, an accurate depiction of something else, even if not factually correct. The sentiment is completely accurate in this digital capture, even though it is not as loud). I can’t see whitewater rushing down the narrow gulley that […]

I did the Swamp Postcard this week as usual, though of course anxiety rates are up in the Last Week before something happens. I got a note back from a very smart pal. She thought I had assumed a stark perspective on things as they progressed in this marvelous election campaign. I nodded in agreement […]

We have been through a lot together in this strange year of rounded numbers and masks. I appreciate your sticking around for it all. I am already off a step- I had assumed things would be quiet this week except for the anguished pleas from a variety of podiums, buried scandals and breathless polling. Not […]

I read a newspaper this morning. I know, I know, so what? That was something that was the core of my morning routine for more than a half-century. Depending on what was going on and where I happened to be, sometimes it was multiple papers representing a variety of viewpoints. The digital age transformed that […]

I wrote the words this morning in the gray pre-dawn. It had been a marvelous display of the end of season, the death of warmth and sunshine, and the gentle scudding of whimsical white clouds. Now it is an endless stream of chill rain and the patter of drops on the awning insistent enough to […]