Gym is a good subject for my eight-year-old daughter Julia. She's tough and athletic, with legs the size of a Russian wrestler. Nerves of steel. I've seen her take a nasty fall and get up without as much as a wince. There's a reason we call her Bam Bam.

She...

My husband wakes up earlier these days. Truth told, I miss the snuggling and pillow talk but the trade-off is worthwhile. At dawn, he lets our six hens out of their locked (and predator-protected) coop. He gives them grain and oyster grit and fresh water. I hear the girls warble...

'It's kinda like the Wild West up here," the town official said, shaking his head. "It's remote. It's an old road. People do what they want to -- and they usually get away with it 'cause no one's minding anyone's business."

Except me, that is.

On this occasion, I...

'It sounds like you're planning a bat mitzvah," my friend Monica said when I described the surprise party I was throwing for my soon to be eight-year-old.

"Oh no," I assured her, a bit defensively. "It's just a garden-variety garden party."

Don't you think the phrase "garden party" classes up...

Everyone said owning chickens is great but you've got to watch out for predators. I took this to heart because we share our wooded mountaintop home with hawks, raccoons, foxes and feral cats.

I bought a custom-made coop from a guy who builds them in Michigan. The little green, wooden...

My friend's husband Paul came over to cut down trees in the woods behind our house. He arrived with a gas-powered chainsaw, an electric chainsaw, soundproofing earmuffs and protective eyeglasses. My husband, misty-eyed, watched him unload his Jeep. Then they shared a manly handshake.

"I want to get rid of...

I now know there is a medicinal plant that can be used to treat next-door-neighbor blues. It's called Fargesia, or clumping bamboo.

Some background: Readers of this column might remember that my neighbor and I are not on friendly terms. A couple of years ago, he piled a mountain of...

Spring at my house is like a duel in an old western. My husband wields the Home Depot catalog, packed with tons of stuff for DIY backyard projects. My weapon of choice is the Crate & Barrel catalog, loaded with staged backyard idylls that make me want to reach for...

When I bought my house five years ago, there was a little green shed with the whimsical inscription "Fresh Eggs Sold Here." It was not entirely a gratuitous flourish because the former owner kept a flock of free-range hens. These birds, like roving cats, were known by everyone along the...

One of the greatest privileges a writer has is receiving feedback from readers. Even in this age of instant online dialogue, I'm gratified when someone takes the time to respond to what I've written, even when the comments are unfavorable, but fair.

I recently published a story about the...

In light of the hoopla surrounding the woman who returned the adopted boy to Russia, I hope my story helps people to understand that unless they've walked in these shoes, they don't know what it's like.

Everyone said I'd fall in love the minute they laid her in my arms....

"Oh my God," I yelled, peering out the window. "Daddy's had a heart attack. Wait here."

I ran down the freshly paved path to the far end of my property where Ricky was laying face up, arms splayed, snow shovel at his side.

"What are you doing out here...

I hear his step before I feel his bare arms around me. His embrace is like a warm sweater. My nose is pressed against the chilled window. I never tire of watching snow fall. Tonight it is falling hard. It is piling like tufts of whipped cream on the concrete...

Hey Michelle, I hear you're committed to fighting childhood obesity. Can you lend a hand?

I've been trying to quash bad food practices at my daughter's elementary school for several months, and I'm not talking about cafeteria food because that's a bigger fight. I've simply been trying to get...

The business of raising a child these days can be dark and disconcerting. Especially if you're sitting at a sleep-away camp orientation with nail-biting parents, as I was recently. It was a cold January day when we gathered in an airless hotel suite for a question-and-answer session with the program...

We are a child-safety obsessed nation. Water wings for the pool. Helmets for skiing and cycling. Mandated ages for booster seats in cars. Anti-Bullying programs. We don't let our kids wander alone or stray out of our sight. A recent sexual molestation in a movie bathroom at the Palisades Mall...

As de-sensitized as we are, murder in a small town is unnerving. When we hear about it, our gut question is: Was the murder random or did the victim know her killer?

We need to know because random crime makes us feel vulnerable. If the killer and the victim...

When we moved into our renovated house in late October 2005 I said to my husband, "We should host Thanksgiving this year." We finally had a real dining room after living in our shoebox on the Upper West Side.

"No one will come," he said.

I knew he was...

Chances are you remember Halloween the way I do if you're a baby boomer who grew up in Brooklyn or anywhere urban. Houses were decorated with cardboard witches, black cats and skeletons with moving limbs. On the night of Hallows Eve, we dressed in home-spun costumes. Dad snapped a couple...

Norman Rockwell it was not - but there were milk and cookies every day after school in my Brooklyn childhood. I remember dropping my school bags in the living room and racing to the kitchen table where my grandmother's warm mandelbroit was stacked on a plate and cold milk filled...