(Refuge Farm’s first flowers of 2010) I went down to the farm on Friday afternoon. I normally like to head down Saturday morning, when the traffic is a little less obnoxious, but I have obligations downtown tonight and needed to talk to Heckle the feral Cat.   I looked at the Bluesmobile, the Crown Victoria-based […]

I was going to explore the notion of “nullification” this morning, a fascinating topic that could unravel the United States, but I guess we can get to that tomorrow. That is not all that is unraveling. I wound up in a conversation with a buddy about days gone by and wound up going back down […]

  Two consecutive sunny days with temperatures in the low 60s is a positive tonic. The added hour of daylight at the end of the working day is also a wonderful thing. I had been meaning to visit the motorcycle in the basement and remove the battery for charging, since I have not touched it […]

I think I will wind up at Kitty O’Shea’s place sometime this afternoon for a pint or two. I don’t have the stamina I once did, and besides, from what I hear my younger son paid the dues for the family in a legendary day-long celebration by the concrete banks of the Chicago River dyed […]

I worked on the Hill for a couple delirious years, and I wish I could explain what is happening up there this week. I invite your attention. There is Reconciliation, which they have tried to explain over the last few weeks, and failed, and this week there is something called “Deeming.”   I think this […]

(Vincenzo Camuccini’s Death of Caesar, 1798)   I made it back home safely after the long looping road trip to North Carolina. Most of it was under steel-gray skies and periodic downpours of chill rain. It was remarkable that the sun graced the funeral. Otherwise, the last four days have been the color of gun-metal […]

  It is a gray and rainy morning on the farm. The skies match the mood. It was a solemn day yesterday, and I am concerned about Heckle. She is out in rain, instead of holing up in the garage that I left open for her, or in the barn where she is supposed to […]

(Conte’s Bicycle and Fitness Store, Arlington) Fred died twice yesterday, and I am sad, but a little numb. He is still so fresh in my mind, and I have to finish packing to go to another funeral in North Carolina.   Fred actually only passed once, of course, but there was something lost in the […]

(Tidal Basin from the 14th Street Bridge) The blood is quickening in Washington, and the last of the adamant piles of compacted snow are yielding to the rising temperatures. The lot in Big Pink is wet with the melt, and crunchy with the sand put down to enable traction in the aftermath of the great […]

(Colleen R. LaRose. New York Times version of a WPVI-TV image, via Agence France-Presse. Copyright Getty Images) No, gentle readers, this is not going to be a rant about the ex’s in one’s life. I have mellowed with time on that score as the wreckage diminishes in the rear-view. This is about an entirely different […]