When our distant ancestors invented farming ten thousand or so years ago, they began altering these and other wild plants to make them more productive, easier to grow and harvest, and more enjoyable to eat. To date, four hundred generations of farmers and tens of thousands of plant breeders have played a role in redesigning […]
Category Archives: happiness
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted; ~ Pete Seeger, Turn! Turn! Turn!, from Book of Ecclesiastes A hailstorm ravaged our garden last […]
“Sometimes it is a little better to travel than to arrive.” Robert M. Persig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance “It’s the week of the fourth,” he said, “and every bastard from Texas to North Dakota is coming to Colorado in a forty-five foot RV full of kids, pulling two trailers loaded with ATV’s […]
It was late spring before I got around to the first lawn-mowing this year, and of course, I found out that the mower needed a new battery. It took a while to find one, so I borrowed a mower to finish the job. Now, with some delayed rains, the grass is taller and ready to […]
“It is true that I remember the terrains over which I have walked barefoot differently, if not necessarily better, than those I have walked shod. I recall them chiefly as textures, sensations, resistances, planes and slopes: the tactile details of a landscape that often pass unnoticed. They are durably imprinted memories, these footnotes, born of […]
I once thought that all the sky Was filled with flying things, In every breath of wind I felt The rush of feathered wings. I thought the sea was filled with fins And tails and scales and more; That when I neared the ocean’s edge, That seeing me, they’d roar. The land, of course, a […]
“In casting up this dread balance sheet and contemplating our dangers with a disillusioned eye, I see great reason for intense vigilance and exertion, but none whatsoever for despair.” ~Winston Churchill, June 1940 Every day I am bombarded with bad news about politics, society and the environment. Crazy people in charge want to go to […]
“And every Saturday we work in the yard Pick up the dog doo Hope that it’s hard (woof woof)” ~ Joe Walsh, Ordinary Average Guy A small pond forms where the creek backs up behind a small weir, and the adjacent park is a favorite with the geese. As I walk through with my young […]
On the road again Goin’ places that I’ve never been Seein’ things that I may never see again And I can’t wait to get on the road again On the road again … ~ “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson We pulled into the familiar place, road weary and hungry, to be greeted by […]
You fill up my senses Like a night in a forest Like the mountains in springtime Like a walk in the rain Like a storm in the desert Like a sleepy blue ocean You fill up my senses Come fill me again ~John Denver, Annie’s Song Many of my generation, raised on the imminent nuclear […]
Writes of Nature 