Two hundred years ago Thoreau built his famous hut on Emerson’s property by his beloved Walden Pond and lived there away from distractions of “modern” life. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” he wrote, “To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach." And I think I had this in mind when I asked a friend if I could park my recently purchased used trailer on the 47-acre farm he had recently acquired.

While we give a nod to Patricius himself, the once kidnapped and enslaved Roman Brit, who escaped from Ireland only to return years later to preach Christianity and drive the snakes of paganism from the Emerald Isle, let’s take a moment of respite to raise a glass to our fellow men and women and acknowledge we are all at sea on the same ship of humanity. We are not usually open on a Tuesday, but well, would any bar in America really want to keep its doors closed on such a d

More fables from Fence Road, in winter's grip, hibernation and Ice Bowls. I wrote in November that we were in the in-between times, that being in between fall and winter. But I recently learned that this period, January and February, have also been called the in-between times…because for a time those months did not exist. Back in Roman times there wasn’t much people could do in this period, so they just didn’t count it. Their calendar was 10 lunar months ending in December