Peri McQuay

Peri Phillips McQuay is the author of Singing Meadow: The Adventure of Creating a Country Home, The View From Foley Mountain, a book of nature meditations on her experiences living for 30 years at the Foley Mountain Conservation Area and A Wing in the Door: Life With a Red-tailed Hawk is the story of her adventures with Merak, a human-imprinted hawk, who lived free but saw McQuay and her family as her special people. Also Peri has written numerous essays, articles, book reviews and a weekly column, published in the Kingston Whig-Standard Magazine. Her credits include Country Journal, Harrowsmith, Bird Watcher’s Digest, The Snowy Egret, Seasons, The Fiddlehead, Herizons and Brick.

My Lost Woods

Leave a Comment / Inspiration, Nature, trees

My Lost Woods The Lost Woods I have never forgotten nature writer Edwin Way Teale’s remembrance of an Indiana woods he encountered where he was surrounded by “great silent winter trees—oak, beech, hickory, ash and sycamore.” As a small boy he had travelled there with his grandfather. Then, while his grandfather loaded stove wood on their bobsleigh, he had wandered through “gloomy aisles between the trees. Branches rubbed together in the breeze with sudden shrieks or mournful wailings and the …

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The Comfort of Fire

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The Comfort of Fire Fire’s Burning, Fire’s Burning, Draw nearer, draw nearer. In the gloaming, in the gloaming. Come sing and be merry. (Girl Guides’ Song) Although I always longed to heat my house with wood, it wasn’t until we moved to Singing Meadow that this was possible. Eighteen years ago we believed this also was an environmental choice, although sadly I know better now. All the same, I will never forget the thrill of watching our wood stove …

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Woman, Watching

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Woman, Watching, Merilyn Simonds’ Exciting Biography of Louise de Kiriline Lawrence Merilyn Simonds’ fine new biography, Woman, Watching is a labour of love which not only opens a dialog into what a biography can be but also about how naturalist and author Louise de Kiriline Lawrence should be remembered. This compelling story touched me on many levels. Louise and her nature books have been special to me since the days when one of my publishers, Barry Penhale, used to slip …

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Nature Writer
Courtesy of Mel Shaw How I Became a Nature Writer Originally published in A Wing in the Door I grew up surrounded by a small woods and, because of my artist parents’ solitary life, the trees became more my kin than people will ever be. But alas, for all its charm, my woods was threatened […]
Wonderful
Wonderful Recently, in an effort to dodge all my Facebook wannabe suitors I decided to replace my portrait there with a representative image. Rummaging through 20 years of my own pictures, I was arrested by this blurry, long-ago snapshot of Merak, the human-imprinted red-tailed hawk, who flew free at Foley Mountain, but saw me and […]
Begin Again
Begin Again Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and afraid. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. Rumi “I can’t do this!”It’s early morning, […]
Mel Shaw’s Love Affair With Foley Mountain
Mel Shaw and His Love Affair With Foley Mountain Overlooking Westport From Foley Mountain I wanted to interview my long-time friend, Mel Shaw, not just because his intimate nature photos please me, but because he is a good example of someone who enjoying retirement. (Some of you may know him from the attractive calendar he […]
So, This Happened
So, This Happened So, after Christmas, this happened. And I am still at a loss to explain to you why it happened. Nevertheless, I have to confess that the completely unreasonable arrival of the yellow Kitchenaid mixer on my kitchen makes me very happy. Even still, though, this shocks me. In fact, this mixer is […]