Toward the end of summer, flowering mint drives the wasps and bees mad with delight. But this year, I made sure the insects were not the only ones delighted by the mint—or should I say mints—growing in our own back yard. Enjoying mint tea is nothing new to me. In my...
I love the way summer dotes on us with its predictable and its unpredictable surprises. I look forward to the royal pink crape myrtle carpet in our back yard. When I see these buds as fat and orange as carrots, I know it’s almost Turk’s cap lily time. And sure enough,...
A dozen hungry goldfinches bob and bounce on billows of yellow coneflowers. A gray hairstreak butterfly, not an inch long, trails its delicate fringes on the surface of one of the brilliant blossoms. Bees and dragonflies of every hue teem on the flowers that grow and...
“You got strawberries?” A boy on a bike paused at the entrance to Lisa’s Garden. “Nope,” I replied. “Just flowers.” He rode on, with a puzzled backward glance. Crowds of people were parking along the street and strolling across the grass, stopping to admire a dazzling...
A hundred years ago, my grandfather brought his wife Irene and their five little children to their new home. It’s the very house I live in today. My father was the littlest boy at the time, and all his life he remembered the delight of dangling his feet over the side...
When Christmas rolls around, our fireplace is front and center. But it’s a place for knitting stockings, not hanging them. There is no mantel. The stockings would be toast in no time. On Christmas Eve, we usually line the stockings up on a nearby couch. On Christmas...
“T’is the season! Kroger shelves empty of my favorite unbleached flour. I search from store to store for green candied cherries. Bags of chocolate chips and packs of butter spill over in my grocery cart. Dough is chilling for pecan dreams and molasses crinkles. A...
Sweet Potato Angel BISCUITS, that is! And a Nina angel to roll out the tender dough. At fall harvest time, and into the Christmas season (think ham or veggie accompaniment)—well, really, all year around–Sweet Potato Angel Biscuits have become a favorite of our family...
We both stared at a crack on the surface of the small wood-handled pancake turner. I’m not sure if he offered, or if I requested, but it was agreed that he would take it to the garage and try to fix it. “Don’t ruin it!” were my last words as he headed out to the...
Magic dust! The words caught my eye as I paid for my grapes at the vineyard farm stand. A small baggie of wonder-working dust to work magic on tired African violets–bargain at only one dollar! There was no mention of secret ingredients or even active ingredients. The...
Ahhh…how nice to be home after some extended time away. There was lots to do in the yard—firewood to stack, weeds to clear away, and lots of November beauties to savor. I loved the turkey tail fungus that had popped into color after a rain. I loved the fresh yellow...
When pumpkin time rolls around, we lay in a supply of chocolate. Not M&M’s or Snickers bars. We buy chocolate milk–small half pints of the cold stuff, ready to tuck into proffered pumpkins or grocery sacks or pillow cases when little ones come trick-or-treating....
It was a sparkling October morning in Flory Park along Mill Creek in Lancaster, PA. A beautiful patchwork of fallen leaves drifted on the surface of the lazy stream, as if showing off cherished varieties of local trees. Near the creek, seventy friends in sturdy boots...
As the days get shorter and the sun sinks lower, there is one thought on my mind: Will the pineapple sage bloom? It is October 21…and chilly. Back from a trip, I check the green tips of the plant that has been stretching up over the garden wall after a slow start from...
Deep blue salvia, stunning red dahlias, and the arresting green of hairy balls create a visual feast in my fireplace, all the more beautiful in their transience. Soon my flowers will give way to fires. It’s fall, though, right now—a time for all kinds of feasting. A...
Stretching my legs after an open convertible ride back from the Outer Banks, I wander by our biggest butterfly bush. Butterflies everywhere! The bright October sunshine is glittering not only against the blue sky, but off the skittish wings of joyous monarchs—four of...
September 29, 2014 In the misty pre-dawn, I run back and forth from the truck to the tarp, cradling boxes of Concord grapes in my arms. My father has died, and I am doing his work. On this one day a year, I am the grape lady. There are blue balloons flying out at the...
Tucked away in the attic are scrapbooks half a century old. Crumbling brown petals from long-ago corsages stick to pages along with four-leaf clovers no longer green but treasured for whatever luck they brought me. To ramble in my garden is to open a scrapbook of...
Somewhere around the first of September it finally happens—a tiny flame of pure yellow appears at the top of a nondescript, ten-foot-tall weed just over my brick wall. The Jerusalem artichokes are starting to bloom! Since spring, the messy boring invasive greenery has...
I was eighteen when I wrote “The Prayer of the Butterfly” into my journal, copied from Prayers from the Ark. The poem enchanted me. I was enchanted also by butterflies and the ditzy life they led. Imagine your life work being to flutter beautiful wings and go from...
I opened the front door to get more of the morning through the glass storm door, then blinked in surprise as a squirrel on the lawn turned and ran toward me. I saw herwhite feet right away. We have been noticing Socks for years, frisking in the white oaks and in our...
A commotion in the lawn caught my eye. There was a flash of gray and white in the pokeberry bush towering 8 feet high in our wild flower garden. Red stalks shook and green leaves trembled. The mockingbird was tending his buffet, the first pokeberries turning black and...
The first surprise was a piece of stainless steel chimney apparatus on the ground. That was followed by tufts of insulation. The crowning clue was a dark moving shadow and the flap of huge wings. Three huge vultures. That included the pair that we saw preening and...
It is dusk. Robby and I are lingering over a shared piece of apple pie as we finish dinner outside by the brick garden wall. Suddenly there is a familiar throaty whirr—and a hummingbird zooms past us. And another. The first perches on the clothesline and rests nearby....
It was just a simple pulley ordered from Lehman’s Hardware, the fabulous place in Ohio where you can find any interesting gadget. I hoped it would change my life. For decades I had longed for a beautiful airy clothesline on which to pin flapping sheets and...
