Soon Jim,16 and Emily,13 the youngest ofour four children, will helpme make some long-overdue improvements  on the outdoor toilet that supplements our indoor plumbing when we are working outside.

Besides the usual household rouine, she oversees the garden and beehives ,bakes bread ,cans and freezes .

There hace been a few anxious moments since then ,but on balance hings hace gone much better than we had any right to expect .

For various stories of mine , I've crawled into black bear dens for Sports Illustrated ,hitched up dogsled racing teams for Smithsonian magazine ,checked out the Lake Champlain "monster"for Science Digest .

Then our canned-goods shelves and cupboard began to grow with preserves ,tomato juice ,grape juice ,plums ,jams and jellies .