In early July, while turning the big compost pile, I found a clutch of snake eggs. Laura and I decided to try to hatch them, and she set up an incubator. After about 2 months, one of the eggs actually did hatch and a pretty rat snake baby emerged. We got her some frozen pinkies […]

After 8 years with us and approximately at 10 years of age, our female emu Mel died in a tragic accident last weekend. On Saturday evening, as I went out to feed the animals, I saw that Mel was throwing a fit (which she sometimes does), racing around the pasture and doing her crazy dance, […]

I applied in June online on the grounds that I had been a legal US resident for more than 5 years (30 , actually), and I was approved and sworn in on Sept. 9, 2024 at the RDU field office. The process was really straight-forward, but then so was my case. The vibe at the […]

ENGLISH in a nutshell: Germany now allows dual citizenship! Yay! Ab heute gilt das neue Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (StAG) für Deutschland. Das Staatsangehörigkeitsmodernisierungsgesetz (StARModG) wurde am 26. März 2024 erlassen, und es erneuert das StAG in drei wichtigen Punkten: Diese Modernisierung war dringend notwendig, vor allem für Menschen die schon lange in Deutschland leben, aber keine Deutsche […]

Happy New Year to the Sri Lankan Community on the island and around the world! April 13 Sri Lankans (Sinhala and Tamil) celebrated the move of the sun into the sign of Pisces, which traditionally marks the the beginning of a new year for them. My friends in the local Sri Lankan community here in […]

This is the Three Sisters Swamp in North Carolina. It’s a flooded bald cypress forest along the Black River. The large trees in this picture are likely over a thousand years old – possibly around two thousand years even. Laura and I went on a kayak tour through the swamp at the end of March […]

This is a recording of the first hour of the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. A YouTuber bought a 60-year-old video tape on eBay, and it turned out to contain a recording of the moon landing broadcast. The live feed from the moon start at around minute 40 of the video.

For us, last year marked a return to (a new) normal, after the COVID pandemic and after my mother’s illness and death in 2022. I am back in the office on a pretty regular basis, and we were able to travel without public health-related restrictions. Although COVID is not “over,” it has become integrated and […]

From August 26 to September 8 this year, Laura and I went on a little adventure to Iceland. First we spent a few days with my dad and his partner Marion exploring the area around Reykjavik, then Laura and I went on a 6-day horse riding tour on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Finally, we drove South […]

Last week, the Fagradalsfjall volcano in southern Iceland produced a new eruption near the Litli-Hrútur mountain. There is lots of beautiful drone footage of the eruption, but this is some of the nicest I have seen, so far. Here is a link to a live webcam of the new vent.

On April 25, our 18 year-old Russian Blue cat named Koklo died. She had been sick for a long time, but recently her health got worse and worse, and on Tuesday she passed away peacefully at home. Koklo loved – nay adored – Laura. Koklo always wanted to be near Laura and sleep in her […]

Winter came early and vigorously in December 2022, and then Spring popped in and out in January and February this year. Here is Patou enjoying spring weather in February. In fact, on Jan 2nd it was so nice I took my shoes off and went for a jog in the neighborhood, only to get attacked […]

For me, last year was overshadowed by the illness of my mother and her death in September. I ended up taking four trips to Germany this year, none of which were particularly relaxing. Of course this was also year three of COVID, moving from pandemic to endemic. And COVID rules also impacted most of our […]

Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.Let it not be a death but completeness.Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.Stand […]

On May 12, our beloved, old gelding Wally died in the pasture where he had lived for the last 12 years. We purchased Wally in 2010 as a companion for our Tennessee Walker mare Cleo. He was already older – maybe 16-18 years old and scrawny, almost malnourished when we got him. But we got […]

Für DEUSCH hier klickenIn Early March, we bought a beehive from a local bee-keeper and set it up on our little farm. Laura had been taking beekeeping classes with the local beekeeper’s club, and one of the members put up his three hives for sale because he was planning to move to a different state. […]

Last month I moved out of my office in the Brightleaf Square South building, an old tobacco warehouse from 1904 that had been restored and converted to retail and offices in the 1980s. I had had an office in that building since I started working at Duke in 2002 – so for 20 years. At […]