Category: Ruminate
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Lush Living
If I were to sum up my life right now in one word it would be this: LUSH The garden is coming into peak season with cabbages sizing up, the first peppers appearing, herbs branching, and flowers blooming. The foliage is now so thick in some places that my garden “rooms” feel as enclosed as…
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Fairytale
I recently posted photos of the deeply discounted roses, plucked from the half-dead shelf at the hardware store, that I planted last year. When my sister saw the images, she remarked “It’s like a fairytale.” As much as I dislike the modern concept of fairytale, I know what she means. There’s something sublime about a…
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Befuzzlement
Matt’s got the most amazing vocabulary. It’s so impressive that even when he’s correcting my pronunciation or challenging my word selection, I’ve come to appreciate that it’s not because he’s an intellectual snob. It’s because he considers me a person with the capacity to benefit from his linguistic superiority. So… last night in the garden,…
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Compounding Influence
Yes… December was much too cold. January too wet. And February was way above normal temperature wise. None of this bodes well for some of my marginal perennials that are only adapted to certain climate conditions. Truthfully, though, I’m tired of focusing on the things that aren’t right that I can’t control. Lately, I’ve shifted…
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Minding Time
Last year, approximately 525,949 minutes flowed through each of our lives. Like particles of air, some were captured in the biofilter of our brains, networked into our neural memory cells, and stored deeper over several nights of sleep effectively becoming part of us. Other minutes drifted quickly into the ether of the unremembered. Similar to…
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Channeling Climate Anxiety
Saturday morning when I walked outside, just after sunrise, it was already warm. The remnants of Nicole, an exceptionally late season hurricane that washed away structures in Florida before it diffused over land, had dropped three inches of rain on our North Carolina homestead. All the plants, still holding their leaves, glistened with large water…
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Reinvention
Our landscape is littered with signs of metamorphosis. The chicken run is like a slaughter site with so many molted feathers scattered about. Half of our hens look like they were plucked alive. Soon, though, those heritage poultry will be beautifully re-feathered in time for winter. And for a few months, our flock of majestic…
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Snake Warnings and Cicero
One of my favorite parts of our rustic homestead is a woodland trail that winds steeply to the uppermost limit of our property. Over the past 8 years of walking it, I’ve crossed paths with many snakes there. Like polite strangers, we note each others’ presence and continue on our separate ways. Recently, I had…
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Environmental Awakening
Waking up has always been a slow process for me. Even after a good night of sleep, I stumble out of bed, dress, make my way to the chicken coop to let those lovelies out, and go make tea. Then I drink half the cup before I feel coordinated and mentally alert. Once I get…