Spending some time out of town, caring for my Mom after surgery, I am getting out for walks as often as I can. There is a park nearby and I am seeing some pretty sights. My hometown is 1 degree south and 1.5 degree west of where I live now. That seems so small a difference, yet the plant life seems much more accelerated. The temperature is usually never more than 4 degrees or so warmer and sometimes runs the…
ripe & decaying
March 20, 2017I am reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor, 2nd century) and this stood out (Book 3, In Carnuntum): “We should remember that even Nature’s inadvertence has its own charm, its own attractiveness.” Unsure of exactly what “inadvertence” meant, I looked it up. From Dictionary.com: the act or effect of inattention; an oversight. Some examples provided by Mr. Aurelius (can I refer to him that way? seems weird…he was a Roman Emperor, for crying out loud): the way loaves of bread split open on the top when they are…
peonies
March 13, 2017The sight of those red sprouts poking through the dirt is one of the best for me in all of gardening. Peonies are my favorite flowers and I live to see their blooms come May. I’ve been lucky enough to have some planted at most places I’ve lived since I became a gardener. I love them so much that I once almost turned down a free trip to Florida because the timing of it might have meant missing the peonies in…
things
March 6, 2017“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” Tao Te Ching verse 44, as translated by Stephen Mitchell I love this and I would love to report that I know this to be true firsthand. But, that would be misleading. There always seems to be something more that I simply must have or must do, to keep life interesting. I am working diligently to…
