Shortly after moving into our house — over forty years ago — we created a vegetable garden that stretched across the entire width of the back of the yard with a wire fence to keep the dog out. There were a couple of elderly rose bushes that we removed to other parts of the yard, […]
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“Two Roads diverged in a yellow wood…” ~ Robert Frost When I was a kid we spent lots of time hunting and fishing on farmland or ranchland owned by my father’s Texas clients. We’d fish in the farm ponds, man-made reservoirs sometimes big enough to swim or boat in, but mostly serving to water […]
I was a little surprised when my wife complained about my grumpiness recently. I know I’m about to turn 75, and I can’t do some of the physical things I used to, I forget stuff frequently, and most mornings I ache when I get out of bed. I admit that I also feel that the […]
The summer camp I attended in central Texas had special events for returning campers. My brother and I were regulars each summer, maybe only partly due to the fact that our uncle Bob was one of the camp operators and lived on site at Inks Lake. In college, he and our father had been on […]
When I was in junior high, we moved into a new house much larger and nicer than the one I grew up in. It had a bigger yard and my dad installed a couple of dog pens for his birddogs. My brother and I had to mow the yards, but on my dad’s instructions we […]
Well, it’s late April, nearly Earth Day, and I think that Mother Nature is just showing off. It’s been pretty mild this spring and we’ve really enjoyed the massive blooms on the crabapple and the small, scatteredblossoms on our very old, very tall pear tree. Many of the shrubs are just coming in bloom. But, […]
There’s a new hole in the ground that goes under the edge of one of our flower beds near the bird feeder. Our yard is pretty wild and, probably according to the neighbors, unkempt. Our dog has dug up a few spots, and the squirrels routinely create small excavations in the lawn where they either […]
“It’s likely that the first use of compost — or at least manure — took place not long after the start of cultivation … After all, a people who lived close to nature would soon have noticed the grass grew greener where an animal had deposited its poo.” ~ Compost Magazine I’ve been composting for many […]
“The United Nations estimates that humans produce 400 million tons of plastic waste every year.” ~ Susan Shain “Plastic recycling only exists in the minds of public relations agencies that are promoting plastics,” ~ Judith Enck, former E.P.A. official and founder of Beyond Plastics I’ve pretty much quit trying to interpret the little triangles on various products. […]
“The forest is the root of all life; it is the womb that revives our biological instincts, that deepens our intelligence and increases our sensitivity as human beings,” ~ Akira Miyawaki, Japanese botanist and plant ecologist Our 1872 house sits on an old lot in an old neighborhood in a small town sandwiched between the […]
Writes of Nature 