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PODCAST

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree

Ryan B. Anderson

Reflections on family, nature, and tradition from the end of a dirt road in Vermont. oldhollowtree.substack.com

society & culture nature

All Episodes

6:56

To Stand in the Dark

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/11/16

November contains a sort of harsh clarity. We see this first in the natural world; anything extraneous is shed. The trees drop useless leaves and limbs, the hives expel the drones, the animals become discerning in their movement, hibernate. The darkest stretch of the year, the heaving black throughfare leading to the solstice, does not allow for many frills. It is a time to conserve all things necessary and reject the ancillary. This is—like so many elements of the natural world—an invitation to

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8:34

We Fathers Must Not Let the Fire Die

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/11/05

We entered the dark part of the year this past weekend. You crossed over the threshold and now stand closer to the winter solstice than you do the autumn equinox. You’re on the other side of the year from the merry month of May at the absolute grimmest stretch; the days are dark, growing darker yet, and there will be no brightness, no brilliance, no break in the dark for another month and a half.Well, except for you. It all hinges on you now, northern man. You set the tone, stay the momentum,

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10:18

Little Lights and Dark Days

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/10/15

The dark creeps in now. It does that this time of year, right before Halloween. You’re in the garden until well past eight o’clock one day and the next you’re huddled by the woodstove fighting back the marrow-deep raw of a late October fog. You sit down for dinner with your family and note there is something off about the dining room; all those daily imperceptible shifts in the way the sun sets over the nearest ridge have caught up to you and are taking a small toll. All around you now, a bit more

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7:20

You Need to Keep Going

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/10/08

It is October now, though you wouldn’t know it from the mercury rising the past week. The maples are rapidly growing bare and the leaves are crisp beneath our boots, yet the air hums with a misplaced summer heat. For days now, the warmth has lingered heavy, uninvited, strange. The bees are restless, spilling from their hives past twilight, agitated and uncertain of the season or their aims. The full moon hasn’t helped their confusion, nor mine. It has cast its silver light through the boughs and

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8:19

You Must Recognize Your Victory Now

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/09/24

You’re well on the march to winter now. The solstice came and went back in June and your days became imperceptibly shorter. Lammas came and went quietly with the early harvest. Now the equinox is behind you and there is no denying that summer in all its good green glory has performed its function. Everything good grew, bloomed, and went to seed.Purpose and achievement realized, made manifest.A culmination of green and gold, of seed and loam.We could learn from all the trees and flowers this time of

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11:47

How to Find Your Balance in an Unbalanced World

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/09/17

We are deeply unbalanced, off-kilter, ready to fall. Take a look at any headlines and no matter your politics or lack thereof, you will likely conclude our entire world is teetering on the edge of a blade, at risk of falling into cataclysmic disorder. This coming Sunday however contains a heavenly convergence that is worthy of your reflection and may offer some solace; it is both a new moon and the autumn equinox. This is significant not because of some spurious astrology but rather the real,

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14:08

How to Slow Down Time

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/08/20

It is late August and the northern places have begun to transform with quiet, unassuming grace. The nights grow cool in the hills and a walk down the road, through the forest, or past a tangled hedgerow will reveal autumn’s early, subtle gains. Apples have begun to tumble from branches, splitting open in ditches and their bruised, tart-sweet perfume mingles with the crisp air. Sumac has begun to blush along the edges of the field as if the bees told it a risky joke. Goldenrod reigns over every

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7:36

Flowers Freely Given

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/08/17

Author’s Note: this essay is part of the Reports from the High Wood series, a weekly premium report from our homestead that offers enduring lessons for living well in a wounded world. If you're drawn to green paths, perennial values, and timeless beauty that resists the modern glare, you're in the right place.Normally these Sunday posts are for paid subscribers only, but the nature of this essay makes it feel right that this post should be available to everyone.Here are some of our past beekeeping

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11:38

What We Learn from Dying Flowers

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/08/14

It is the middle of August and now we wander through our high summer haze toward the equinox, toward fall. It may feel cruel to speak of autumn as the children yet splash and shout in the swimming holes, as the berries burst on the vine, as the school bell still gathers dust, but walk now slowly along the ditches where the lilies and daisies once bloomed and you will know this is the truth. Those fair flowers of July have bowed gracefully into the loam making way for the bright, proud goldenrod and

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8:47

Three Truths Milkweed Can Teach Us About Parenthood

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/07/06

The common milkweed stands tall along the roadsides and fencerows all summer, steadfast and unassuming in the ditches, the hedgerows, the border-places. To some, it is just a weed, coarse in its stalk and broad of leaf. To those with eyes to see however, it is the silent keeper of a secret, the host of a story older than any one of us, the tender of a cycle that endures without question or complaint. It is the keeper of old truths we can yet learn—old truths of what it means to be a parent.If you

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11:06

You Need to Stop and Smell the Roses or Lose Your...

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/07/02

Artificiality is now the norm. Screens can simulate nearly everything, images can be doctored, videos completely fabricated, words twisted, sounds engineered. There, as always, is hope however. In this wounded modern world, where so many things have become false or illusory, you always possess one pure conduit of truth: your sense of smell. In a sea of artificial reality where you cannot trust your own eyes, scent resists the modern manipulation. It is stubbornly real, a direct communion between the

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7:54

Let June Overwhelm You

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/06/04

My baby does not want to sleep this week. She wants to stand. She wants to place her hands on my stomach, get her feet under her, and lean gently back. She wants to stand there in bed and show me she can wave her little hands. I resist the urge to be frustrated by this, the voice like television static in my brain that tells me she needs to sleep so I can go do things. Tidy the house, get the honey business in order, make more money. She of course, is simply embodying exactly what this season is

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8:17

You Have to Let it Linger

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/05/28

The urgency is real now. You feel it in the long stretch of daylight, the way everything grows all at once, in the good green pattern absolutely bursting forth now. Gentle May makes her exit ushering in heady June. The sun is up before you are and lingers long past supper yet somehow the days feel too short. Daylight runs close to fifteen hours now, and still it is just not enough to complete everything you want. The natural world is hurrying: bees rise earlier, the dandelions bloom and seed, trees

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12:57

We Have Forgotten Our Children

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/05/21

In the early mornings here in the meadow, the grass glitters with dew, heavy, bowed. Beyond the path leading to the wood line, a keen eye might see the smallest of movements. A doe lifts her head from a nest of ferns where she left her spotted fawn, a fox trots home after a dawn hunt, a sow bear shows her cub how to nuzzle out the tender shoots. The wild animals here slinking through the bough-dappled light do not hesitate to protect and tend to their young. Every creature, from bear to bird, gently

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13:41

Your Wedding Deserves Children

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/05/14

Here in the meadow, May brings song. The bluebirds have staked their claim to the birdhouse by the old hay rake. They dart about, from the iron to the little house to the forest and back again. Their low-pitched warble signals a courtship and the promise of return next year following another long winter; four notes that implore “Now, come hither!” Promise manifest. The tree frogs however have begun to quiet their courting songs; dusk brings a quieter chorus at the woodline than it did even a week

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12:54

Your Children Need to See You Kiss

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/05/07

Something is wrong.Imagine your culture has a common folk ritual of which everyone knows, it has lasted since before written history, and is innately good. Your stories tell you it is good; nearly every folk and fairytale your grandparents told you revolves around this good ritual. Your science tells you it is good; if you partake in this ritual, you have measurably less psychological distress, you become wealthier, and you even live longer. Your very heart tells you it is good. By all accounts, you

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11:12

How to Begin Anything Good

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/05/04

Author’s Note: this essay is part of the Reports from the High Wood series, a weekly premium report from our homestead that offers you enduring lessons for living well in a wounded world. If you're drawn to green paths, perennial values, and timeless beauty that resists the modern glare, you're in the right place.Here are some of our past beekeeping posts that will give context if you are new here:Thank you for being here, for walking this good green path with us.Today, it began. Year one, day

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9:57

You Can Save a Beautiful Tradition

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/04/27

Picture it: two little girls run up to a door with a glint of benevolent mischief in their eyes. They’re carrying something, something colorful you can’t quite make out. They hang their little parcel on the door with a piece of ribbon or twine, knock, and run away. You spy their delivery: a paper cone filled with forsythia, daffodils, and pussy willow. The happy victim of the good prank looks around befuddled, notices the parcel, reaches in and pulls out a piece of chocolate that made its way under

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8:36

All the Good that Can Happen

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/04/23

We are running now, running toward the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Easter has come and the green blade rises along every hill and dale. Our days are long. They are long and they are good. Walk through a field or forest this time of year, along the stone walls and hedgerows, scan the the hillsides, and your wandering eye will be met with nothing but green, long desired and now present green. You become imbued with the sense that there is an incredible prejudice

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6:36

The Deliberate Manifestation of Beauty

Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree ·

2025/04/13

Months ago, I read as someone scoffed at the photographs depicting the life of a man I admire, Simon Sarris. Simon is, like me, a father in New England who loves the natural world and appreciates beautiful things. He is a photographer and writer whose home and family seem to exist in a state of timeless, composed grace. The cynical detractor wrote something to the effect of “His life is only beautiful because he deliberately staged it that way,” as if that were a valid criticism. As though

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