Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is said to be the definition of frustration.

I am an iTunes connoisseur — constantly updating my IPod with new music so that I can build playlists for my spinning class.

On the farm, some things you just cannot fight.

The affair started at the tender age of six has seen no cessation.

Recent rains could not have come at a better time.

Scout lost her brother, Doolittle, last fall to an uncontrollable desire to chase vehicles. Since then, she has relied heavily on the companionship of Buddy, the golden-haired sage of all that is grand and glorious regarding farm life.

Why should we expect for insurance to cover the basic maintenance of our most precious vehicle, our bodies?

I have noticed that girls today are ignoring the “good guys” and pursuing relationships with the so-called “bad boys.”

Wayside’s second show of its 48th season is D.L. Colburn’s Pulitzer and Tony Award winning “The Gin Game,” a hit on Broadway in 1977 when it starred Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.

Coping in today’s economy sounds like advice written by someone who still has his job, never lost one or is depositing in excess of 100K per annum in his discretionary fund.

Here at the end of July I am reminded of the burden of risk farmers carry in order to accomplish their job of producing our food.

There are many issues that are in play when they come to the table to discuss the pivotal issue of joint water and sewer resources.

There are many ways to know the soul of a church.

It is Tour de France time and nothing is more inspiring this time of year than to see Lance Armstrong as a lead contender again.

Is it the building, the history, the burial ground, the congregation or “all of the above?” Lying at the foot of Slaughter’s or Cedar Mountain on Cedar Mountain Road is a little country church full of answers to those questions.

Start with one ever-so-human flaw and give it power. Watch it grow and spiral outward, creating a vortex that pulls everything down with it. There you have King Lear, subject of what many scholars agree is Shakespeare’s greatest and most complex tragedy, “one of the supreme achievements of the human imagination.”

Small grain harvest is about done here in the middle of July but we have been surprised to find aflatoxins in some wheat and barley.

“KING LEAR” - This is the one to see - if you can get in. Shakespeare’s electrifying tragedy of a king who finds out only too clearly what happens when you divide the kingdom has been packing full houses.

Starkly alone in the abyss of the night woods atop Bruce’s Mountain, I was engaged in a long awaited rite of passage.

The July 4 holiday is just past us and I had time to reflect on the spirit of the occasion.

It’s rough living in a dungeon. Even worse when you have the Spanish Inquisition toying with your future and fellow prisoners putting you on trial for, among other things, being a bad poet.

The summer evening emerged mildly as America took the stage at the downtown Pavilion last weekend, softening an already mellow vibe.

It’s the 4th of July; banks are closed, government workers are on a holiday and the mail won’t be delivered. To go about life as if it were any other day would be a national sacrilege. Like good citizens in need of a respite, we party!

This is a good year to test corn land for nitrates considering the weather risk most nitrogen was put through during the last six weeks.

I was honored to speak at the Aging Together Culpeper Community Conversation 2009 last week at the Culpeper Baptist Retirement Community.

It was the summer of 1951, the USA was fully engaged in the Korean War, the economy was booming and the Nelson family with mom and dad, one set of grandparents and four children were moving to Culpeper.

As many of you know, the Culpeper Chamber of Commerce established a Grant Writing Council this past winter.

We just cannot sustain a constant Mad Hatter-style dashing about and the eternal engagement is nothing less than the pithiest issues. Every now and again a reprieve is necessary to the maintenance of at least a semblance of sanity.

Barley is about ready to be harvested and will be coming to town by the truck load near the end of June, headed for storage and later use as livestock feed.

Culpeper is becoming a “destination” for events.