AMSTERDAM — This is the Bicycle Capital of the World, a fact quickly brought home by a three-story parking garage solely for bikes outside Amsterdam Central Station, with 10,000 parking spots. We took a high-speed train from Hürth, Germany to here. We (me, my Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, daughter Mere and son-in-law Matt, who live in Hürth) sprung for first-class tickets for the three-hour ride and essentially had a private cabin with ample legroom and minimum hassle. I will take a train over a plane anytime, if possible.
Nearly all sidewalks in Amsterdam have bike lanes...
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HÜRTH, GERMANY — Germans love their Christmas markets. Over eight days, my Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, and I browsed, nibbled, sipped and gawked our way through towns in and around our temporary headquarters — a pleasant hotel a five-minute walk from daughter Mere and son-in-law Matt’s apartment in Hürth. That city adjoins Köln (Cologne), a much-larger city and home to one of the largest markets in Germany.
Our first Christmas market stop was to the Bonn Christmas market. Most trips started in the late afternoon after Matt got off work and could ably serve as both...
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SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC — We are crammed in the outskirts of steerage on what my friend Albert would call a doublewide jetliner. It is a Boeing 777, now flying at 35,000 feet and 600 mph toward Heathrow Airport in London. That is our first stop before taking a short, even more-crammed flight to Cologne, Germany. That is where middle-daughter Mere and son-in-law Matt have lived and worked for a little more than a year. My Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, and I are on our way to visit for 10 days, a trip that required considerable planning. I took charge of the flights and hotel....
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We went in search of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree last weekend in the woods of No-Name Farm. It was my Beautiful Mystery Companion’s idea, to which I readily agreed. She drove the Mule while I rode shotgun as we bounced through the forest, looking for an appropriate tree, preferably a pine. The chainsaw was in the back of the mule. Hardwood trees dominate these 57 acres, but scraggly cedars grow throughout, never reaching significant size since the hardwood canopy keeps the sun from reaching them. There is a scattering of mature pine tree. We hoped we might find a pine sapling near one of them.
No...
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The Christmas cactus is now in full glory, red and white blossoms popping out all over, blooming about a month earlier than its name indicates. It sits on an antique wooden chair in front of my desk, alongside a plant called a painter’s palette, or anthurium. That plant’s bloom is also exquisite, very shiny, almost as if it were shellacked. Both plants were presents from one of my Beautiful Mystery Companion’s brothers. They have lasted, indeed flourished, for years thanks to my BMC’s talent with plants. If it grows, she knows how to care for it. I simply follow orders, lugging plants here...
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Now it's all I can do just to get out of bed
There’s more in the mirror than there is up ahead
I smile and I nod like I heard what you said every time
So run another rack
Pour another shot
You don't get it back so give it all you got
While you still got a more or less functional body and mind
— If It Don’t Bleed, by James McMurtry
The Friday before Thanksgiving, I walked Pancho’s pasture, spreading more ryegrass seed, this time with a borrowed hand spreader. It consists of a canvas sack that can hold 25 pounds of seed, a hand crank and a shoulder strap. I am trying to thicken...
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Now that mowing and bushhogging season has largely ceased — likely one more round of bushhogging around the fence line in the back 50 acres — I have turned my attention to cutting up and burning fallen tree limbs. This task ought to keep me occupied until it is time to start mowing again. Every thunderstorm or afternoon of brisk winds seem to send another bevy of limbs crashing to the ground, landing on the fence, blocking the tractor’s paths. Or that of the newly semi-acquired Kawasaki Mule.
I say semi-acquired since it belongs to my brother-in-law, Jim. The Mule, what is known as a side-by-side,...
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We just finished watching a couple of seasons of Farmhouse Fixer on HGTV. It stars Jon Knight, who first gained fame in the 1980s as a member of the boy band New Kids on the Block. It turns out Knight’s other passion is restoring New England farm houses. A recent episode featured the John Proctor home in Peabody, Massachusetts, built in 1638. Peabody adjoins Salem, which, of course, was home to the infamous witch trials. Both John Proctor and his wife, Elizabeth, were accused, tried and convicted of being witches. Elizabeth’s execution was stayed because she was pregnant. John was hanged, along...
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My favorite month has arrived. November brings fall foliage, predictably cooler temperatures, Thanksgiving and the end to Daylight Saving Time. I awake at first light unless there is a reason to set an alarm. Since I largely work an afternoon/evening shift at the library, there is seldom a reason.
That means I don’t awaken at the tail end of DST until 7:00 or so, sometimes later. This makes me feel like I am already running behind on my morning routine — working out, writing, researching — all the activities I try to get done before heading to work. Now it will get dark earlier, but sunrise...
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Early voting is well underway for the Nov. 8 general election. Hence, the number of email and text message fund-raising pleas filling my inboxes has increased exponentially in the past week. Clearly, I somehow landed on a mailing list that was shared with folks running all over the country — Pennsylvania, Arizona, Iowa, Wisconsin and Florida, to name a few. Nearly all of these go into the promotions inbox of my Gmail, so each morning I hit “select all” and send them all to the trash. For grins, I decided to let them accumulate, not so I can actually donate money, but to collect the subject...
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