I am not going into what happens here in Northern Virginia, the District and Maryland when the snow comes. There is a rush to the liquor store before it arrives, of course, and then toggling back and forth on the laptop between the National Weather Service predictions and Doppler Radar pages. Then apprehension about keeping […]

The Swamp is bracing for a possible repeat of Snowmageddon, the one that buried us for days. a couple years back We also could get freezing rain, which would enable us to glide effortlessly across the surface. That would be a change. Andrew “just call me Andy” McCabe has had a marvellous week promoting his […]

I am getting bored with trotting out the hyperbole each week- you know, the customary opening of “it can’t get stranger than this.” Then, of course, it does. We are the momentary epicentre of looniness here in the Old Dominion. Our Governor is under intense scrutiny for inappropriate behaviour thirty or forty years ago, for […]

Well, I suppose this is a welcome time of introspection after the American colossus has crashed through the Middle East. I tried to watch the State of the Union address, and managed to see the Speaker of the House carefully reviewing her notes about something or another while the President spoke. Here in Virginia, we […]

So, it has been cold lately. Bitter freaking cold. They call the phenomenon the “Polar Vortex,” most severe such blast of arctic air since the mid 1980s, when they were telling us to panic about the coming of the next Ice Age, which apparently was caused by prehistoric SUV use by my Neolithic ancestors. The […]

Putting the Fun in Dysfunctional! I am pinned down at the farm by the Polar Vortex and icy roads. The Piedmont of Virginia is never quite ready for these things, and we have it far better than Chicago or Detroit where there are weather emergencies in progress and temperatures dozens of degrees below zero (F). […]

This series of stories is dedicated to the memory of Edward Smith Gilfillen, whose recollections should have been told long ago, and for all the Atomic Veterans whose lives were cut short due to exposure to radiation at Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll and the Nevada Test Site, among other places. Last Cruise of the […]

It has been quite a week- which I know you get tired of hearing, since the Swamp has become stranger with each passing week. Amid the government shutdown, legislators took the weekend off as the Coast Guard prepares to meet a second pay period without….well you know, pay. Maybe they should be authorized to retail […]

We have the second night of The Big Moon down in Culpeper County, one of those remarkable times when the orbital mechanics of our fractious solar system bring our hurtling orbs a little closer together than usual. It is an awesome view from the back deck at Refuge Farm. The pastures are bathed in silver, […]

I have been down in Culpeper for the last two weeks, right across the holidays. The skies have been filled the portents of the season- gray skies and chill rain with the prospect of as much as three inches of the white stuff. In preparation, I ventured to the Safeway and the VABC store, just […]