Summer is the testing-time for trees. High-powered storms soften the ground with torrential rain, then follow up with tornadic winds, delivering a one-two punch that can topple even a healthy specimen. Downed trees are practically a given in the summer. How you and...

The magical rise of the firefly is one of the great glories of a humid July evening on St. Peters Church Road. As night lowers its shroud, the cut grass, then the tall weeds, and finally the sleep-heavy boughs of the trees come to life with flashes of LED green. They...

This time of year down in pestilential Baltimore, we’ve come to expect an all-out attack by Aedes albopictus, a nasty little customer more commonly known as the Asian Tiger mosquito. The Asian Tiger can be identified by distinctive bands of black and white on...

In the good old days of the Cold War, come summer Olympic time, you could count on a killer Soviet gymnastics team fanning out across the arena, ravenous for gold, their leotards proudly blazoned with the letters “C C C P.” As a youngster, I puzzled over...

At 5:30AM, London time, on August 6th, as a bleary-eyed Gabby Douglas was stirring in the Olympic Village in preparation for the uneven bars final, another gymnast was readying himself for the signature event of his short career. It would be one of the most difficult...

There’s a running gag in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life that resonates with people who own an old house. It involves a newel post with a turned wood cap about the size of a baseball. George Bailey, the hero played by Jimmy Stewart, has a habit...

Everything had been going so well. The leaky old door seal that had turned our freezer into a winter wonderland, complete with icicles and frost, was sitting in a rigid heap next to the trash can. The new seal, which I’d lovingly bathed in hot water in order to...

It’s a great relief, after the long drive from Baltimore, to turn off Interstate 81 and merge onto the Conodoguinet Parkway. Suddenly Blue Mountain, the great guardian of Perry County, which for miles has been a dark sleeping presence in the driver’s...

It was a scene right out of a horror movie. I was alone in the house. A summer thunderstorm was sweeping north over Blue Mountain. I’d stationed myself in a rocking chair on the porch, a cold glass of water silently beading at my elbow. As the sky darkened from...

The year is 1505. You pull up to your daughter’s new school in your creaking old oxcart, your arms aching from swinging a scythe all day. Eying the other parents’ brand new carts, the fancy kind with the ostentatious leather seats, you wonder, for the...

The lady behind the counter at Butcher’s Farm Market in Newport was multi-tasking. Phone tucked behind her ear, she was ringing up the customer in front of me, an elderly shopper with perfectly coiffed white hair, all the while carrying on an animated...

It was the kind of fall day that sits just outside the open window, taunting you with crisp air and cool sunshine. The wind-whipped corner of a curtain beckons, whispering, “Step away from the keyboard and live a little, moron!” I pushed back from my...

Twice a year, I ease myself into a peppermint-fresh recliner, wriggle reluctantly up to the headrest, and expose my shame to my favorite recovering socialist. Her name is Tatiana, and she’s every bit as fierce as you’d expect of a dental hygienist who grew...

In the interest of public safety, I’m going to skip to the punchline: check your smoke detectors. Not later, not after dinner or the game, but right now. Poke the button with a broomstick; endure the ear-splitting alarm; change the batteries, if necessary; or...

Perhaps you were among the eight million people on the Internet who watched Austrian adventurer Felix Baumgartener skydive from the edge of space last week. I certainly was. I tuned in early, when Felix’s shiny capsule, dangling below a gossamer balloon the size...