● Featured Article

  • Of Trees and Roots and Names of Things

    When my grandpa Averill bought property on Wolf Lake in the Irish Hills of Michigan in the early 40s, he picked the choice lot for himself, and then parceled out smaller lots along the lake edge in a little barony he named “Averill’s Basswood Terrace”. (My grandpa liked to see…

● Latest Articles

  • Family House Clean Bingo

    There’s a daily chore chart to keep the kids on task without nagging, but once a week we all work together to get the house…

  • Present tense

    I had the jitters today… nerves a bit jangled, frustrations circling my head like angry guard bees. A neighbor’s disaster, a snarky email, reality-lag from…

  • Fallow ground: the garden of second chances

    We spent a week traveling with the little pop-up camper, visiting relatives near DC and in Wilmington, NC — museums and monuments, beaches and fun.…

  • Lobster Casserole (the clay kind)

    (The casserole I made for my mom for mother’s day) Jeff and the kids headed for the lake yesterday, but I had to teach at…