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One of the blessings of living here is that when a child is getting restless, television isn't your only option.  You can say, simply, "Go outside and play." You probably won't even get an argument.

When my children were younger, they spent hours and hours in the  meadow behind our house.  They would head out with the dogs trailing  behind them and be gone, sometimes, all day.  The meadow is small by  literal measurements.  Just three or four acres up against a smaller  woodlot that borders a small stream.  But in their imagination, it  was vast and it was their realm.

We don't mow the meadow until some time after the 4th of July, so there are wildflowers to be picked and my daughters would bring me endless bouquets of Indian paintbrushes, black-eyed Susans, and Queen Anne's lace.  There are interesting creatures to be captured, if possible, and studied.  Salamanders and toads and even the occasional snake.  What can't be caught can still be observed with the fascination that is part of a child's makeup.  My girls would report, breathlessly, on their sightings of groundhogs, rabbits, deer and  foxes.  That meadow, in summer, was their Wild Kingdom and there were no commercials.

From time to time, a friend of the magazine will ask me,  "Where do you get your story ideas?"

"I don't know," I'll usually say.  "I just look around."

Not much of an answer, I suppose.  But it is true.

Consider this: The other day, my daughter called and asked if I'd like to come out to her house in West Pawlet.  She'd fix some lunch and I'd get to spend some time with my granddaughter who was six months old.  No chance I'd turn down that invitation.

So I drove in to the grocery store to pick up some things to help out with the lunch.  This included one of the wonderful artisan Vermont cheeses.  We've done stories on the local cheese makers here at Stratton Magazine and I probably got the idea in the grocery store or the local farmers' markets.  You hear about how people get their best ideas in the shower.  For me, it's often while I'm buying food. » read more

I read in The New York Times Sunday Style Section not long ago that knitting is cool. Cooler, the article said, than needlepointing or quilting or any of the other handcrafts. And that trendy yarn shops are opening up in Manhattan to cater to the young and the hip who follow the fashionable inclinations that constantly waft through the city.

It's always good to have one's existence confirmed by The Times Style Section. Since I'm a knitter, I read the article with great interest even though I didn't need The Times or anyone else to confirm the merits of knitting. I've understood them for a long time. I knitted my first sweater when I was 11 years old. It was a white cabled tennis sweater with navy and maroon bands around the v-neck. It ended up being too big and I had to give it to my father who probably never wore it. But I remember two things about that sweater-two things that have kept me knitting to this day: the feel of the yarn and the needles in my fingers and something I think of as "the vision." » read more

I miss my chickens. This is something I never thought I would find myself saying. But there it is. I miss my chickens. But maybe I should start at the beginning.

I have a friend, Kathy, who more or less rents a couple of chickens every summer and lets them roam around her yard and flower gardens, eating bugs. She found an antique coop where the chickens spend the night, secure from the various predators—foxes, coyotes, raccoons—that are common in Vermont and always hungry. When I pull into Kathy’s driveway, the chickens are generally out in the yard, looking around for a Japanese beetle to eat. And they are strikingly decorative. They just do something for the scene. One has a kind of salt and pepper coloring and the other is a very dark, almost mahogany, brown. And, finally, they do lay eggs, which Kathy likes to make into omelets—or a nice quiche—for lunch. After a few visits, I began to envy her those chickens.

When I mentioned this to my daughter, one day, she said, “No problem, take mine.” » read more

John Merwin and I began working for Stratton Magazine at about the same time -- which goes back further than either of us would like to think about. The magazine had another editor then. He became ill and, eventually, died at a tragically young age. I was named editor and was understandably apprehensive. » read more

This time of year, it seems that just about everything in Vermont is hopeful. The sky is blue, the birds are singing, and the flowers are blooming robustly. The furnace has quit running non-stop. » read more