As my Facebook friends know, it's been a wild week. Wild highs, wild lows, the best and worst of wild. It really started a few weeks ago, when the wrens started nesting in the birdhouse...
"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen." ~ John Wooden It was the night before my first triathlon. Though I was still riding an emotional high after...
"A ship in the harbor is safe. But that's not what ships are built for." ~ Anonymous I am a newly minted triathlete. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. It was touch and go there for...
Life is made up of marble and mud.~ Nathaniel Hawthorne When was the last time you got dirty? Not just a little dirty (not even gardening dirty). I'm talking top of your head to the bottom...
I've ruined my 14-year-old son's life. For over a year, Jacob's been asking when we would get rid of our more than gently used Toyota minivan. The van had carted us through a dozen...
A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust. ~ Gertrude Jekyll "Timing is everything," my...
My whole life has been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And...
If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever. ~ Alfred Tennyson Friends matter. I've buried a lot of them in my garden. Put another...
"I like to keep a bottle of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy." ~ W.C. Fields A year ago, almost exactly to the day, a very large snake came calling in my...
Boston gave me a taste of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) yesterday. I was in my ninth hour of gardening when my mother called and told me to turn on the TV. (She knows me. I never...
Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. ~ May Sarton Spring...
To my surprise, my 70s are nicer than my 60s and my 60s than my 50s, and I wouldn't wish my teens and 20s on my enemies. ~ Lionel Blue Today is my birthday. I'm 49. My cousin sent me an...