Heron Hill chronicle

by George Reiger

Why does a gifted, world-savvy New Yorker pass up lucrative career opportunities and move to a quiet salt-marsh farm in coastal Virginia in mid-life? What kind of welcome will he and his wife encounter and how do they adjust? And what is the texture and meaning of such a life and what lessons does it teach? Headstones in their front yard provided some local history; trashpits and outbuildings gave up revelatory objects; they learned about imprinting, marshes, mummichogs, black rail, and much else. They learned about a subsistence lifestyle built on food gathered form the road and the use of local plants and animals. They learned from the diverse group of visitors who came every year. But throughout, Reiger is most drawn to the seminal questions of land use; while he offers a full and rich portrait of a coastal farm and way of life, he finds in this life important and telling implications for our understanding of how we might live, even in the late twentieth century -- and he offers som