The skies wept over Ypres and Passchendaele. This was the place that my Dear One…
Lietuva 6: Bugs and Baltic Sea
Whhappp! Pthbbth! Ssssppppttthhhhtttt! That last comes with a liberal spray of spit. I thought the bugs in spring-time New Hampshire were bad. That was nothing. It’s also obvious to me why so much amber is filled with insects. The mosquitos way down south in...
Lietuva 5: Cuckoos, past and present
Yesterday as we walked through Grūtas Park, my Dear One halted and said, “Hear that? The cuckoo?” I listened and heard twitters and warbles and caws, but no cuckoo. “It’s just like a clock—can’t you hear it?” No, I couldn’t. But later on, back at Romove Homestead, I...
Lietuva 4: Stork-Spotting
As we approached Lithuania’s border with Poland and Belarus in the south, the tall pines exuded a primeval air despite their relative youth, and twisting roads offered glimpses of lakes and streams. In this countryside, gravity secures huge nests, some seeming to...
Patience, My Dogwood
Our dogwood has finally bloomed. She withstood the travails of flood, drought and blizzard, and constant cropping by deer, and this spring she blossomed, like some insecure girl crossing that seemingly impassable divide between challenged childhood and blessed...