When the flash of orange caught my eye from the upstairs window a week ago, I knew what it had to be: the first orange poppy of the spring, risen from the thick tangles of sawtoothed leaves and fuzzy buds that get thicker every year. And it was. This has been a weird spring, eerily […]
Read moreRoots.
This stem of Hibiscus mutabilis, a.k.a. Confederate rose, flourishes in a Mason jar on my kitchen counter, ready for repotting. Its mother plant, originally a cutting from my parents’ yard in Alabama, is resprouting too. Last summer I planted a cutting like this in my yard to see whether, as the plant encyclopedia promised, it […]
Read moreA world safe for children — really.
In Florida, an unarmed boy with dark brown skin, walking to a convenience store for some candy, is shot by a jittery, self-styled “neighborhood watch” vigilante. The reasoning of the white shooter and his supporters — who erupt all over the Internet and the political sphere, with astonishing malice and vindictiveness — is dismally transparent. […]
Read moreA vermicular update — and some home composting lessons.
A couple of posts ago, you read about my new experiment in home vermicomposting. But since then I’ve learned there’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Basically, I now wish I’d started with one of these pictured here — a Worm Factory 360 — from the beginning rather than […]
Read moreGettin’ worms.
The kitchen of your mama’s house in Alabama is not the best place to announce to your family – all human and animal doctors whose lives are full of horses, cattle, and dogs — that you are about to embark on home vermiculture. Especially if you phrase it, casually, “Hey, y’all, when I get back […]
Read moreSeptember 11, in my own backyard.
I can’t remember when this country has ever been so afraid, even more than it was in the days and months following 9/11. Except that what is clouding our hearts and our minds and our lives right now is not immediately recognizable as fear. Even as their average constituent swallows hard and keeps looking for […]
Read moreEarly fall, in fragrance and light.
Last night it became impossible to ignore. Clipping a stem from my backdoor rosemary pot and stripping its leaves into a pork, tomato, onion, and garlic stuffing for peppers (thank you, dear Nigel Slater), I smelled the green cedary tang as it hit the hot oil, and knew, in my senses before my brain, that […]
Read moreIs it late summer or early fall?
Late summer. It’s LATE SUMMER. Because just like my students, I am fighting to push back the Start of School — specifically the entrance and settling-in of School-Year Mentality into my head, there at its worst to hollow out and colonize my mind — as late as possible. What do I mean by that? College-professoring […]
Read moreCheep-cheep-cheepskate?
So I suppose it was inevitable: when a friend and fellow backyard-gardener told me last week that she and her husband and toddler are moving into a new house on the other side of town with a large yard and a somewhat dilapidated pre-existing chicken setup, I immediately thought: This is the chicken-raising chance I’ve […]
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