Loose Leaf Notes

Men at work Photo-op No crows or deer allowed

Ripe tomatoes are falling off the vine. A single yellow swallowtail wings by, looking for zinnia and the last of the petunia. The rising breeze carries the scent of breakfast.  The unlatched screen door squeaks open, then slams shut.  Dirty onions are sprawled on the porch floor waiting to be to braided and hung. It’s [...]

Getting a nose full Up close and personal _______________________ Video clip HERE.

Times sure have changed since the late 80’s when we were a trickle of clowns and kids from Blue Mountain School holding banners and marching through town in a small and poorly attended Earth Day parade. This weekend I took pictures for the newspaper of our county’s annual Green and Clean trash pick-up, of the [...]

Purty, purty, purty!  yip, yip, yea!  Sweet, sweet, sweet! Winner, winner, winner! Ch-ch-ch-ching!  The nice weather has brought lots of front porch time where I’ve been listening to a symphony of birds and putting words to their songs, like when my young neighbor Rowan put words to the squeak in my easy chair rocker: Yes, [...]

With Joe off leading a teen meditation retreat, the extent of my Easter weekend so far has been taking photos of orchards in the produce section while grocery shopping at Krogers and putting forsythia on the table.  I also sent out two pop-up Easter cards; one to my mother and one to my grandson.  Although [...]

I followed a car with an Obama bumper sticker down the Blue Ridge Parkway for the 350 Climate Action photo shoot this morning. In the parking lot field, owned by the Chateau Morrisette Winery and used annually by Floydfest, I parked next to a van with a bumper sticker that read “polar bears for global [...]

It wasn’t a hike, just a leisurely neighborhood stroll and a chance to hold hands as we walked, Joe in his plaid martial arts PJ bottoms and me in my baggy purple house silks. Passing a couple of well-groomed yards tucked away off winding dirt roads caused us to think about how wild our own [...]

Struck by the design on some green bean seeds, I realize that growing food is no less magical than a beanstalk that leads to a golden egg laying goose, than a cow that jumps over the moon. After planting a second row of beans, next to the ones already growing, I take a break to [...]

Tu Tu Cute Aroma Amore Come in a Little Closer

“Do you have any warts?” the conversation began at the morning breakfast nook under a giant pine with a view out onto the garden. He didn’t have any warts left, so I guess the celandine that I replanted from my friend Jayn’s garden worked. And now it had spread throughout the garden and needed to [...]

While Joe prepares the vegetable beds, tilling in manure, I’m busy raking out my flower gardens, shamed to do so by the crocus blossoms peeking through last fall’s dropped leaves. When it comes to our garden, Joe’s better at starting it. I’m good with the follow through, the planting and tending. My garden focus starts [...]

Snow flurries. Cold wind whips. We pull up our goose down hoods. Joe shakes the tree like it’s a piñata full of gifts. Red apples tumble to the ground. I run to collect them like a girl on Christmas morning, marveling at the magic of each one. Joe looks like Santa as he heads up [...]

1. For a small window of time in the spring, three blooms converge in symphony of color in the corner of my yard. 2. Dogwood, azalea, and baby irises come in one after the other, and for a week or two they co-exist together like the colorful layered fruit of an English trifle. 3. I [...]

When my husband recently wanted to buy some composted manure the whole idea of gardening was ruined for me. He was tired and it seemed convenient, but I was aghast. “There’s manure free for the shoveling all over the county,” I complained. “If we’re going to be buying manure, we might just as well not [...]

I climb the familiar fence, which I think of as a threshold into the Garden of Eden, and land on the ground with a thud, announcing my presence. Faraway cows are keening. Buzzards are circling in the sky. I pick up a sturdy stick for walking, and to fend off cows if they bother me. [...]

Harvested ripe red garden peppers and prepared to roast them under the oven broiler before freezing them in olive oil as per the recipe told to me by my friend Kathleen. Tried to lift a humungous pumpkin that Joe carried over from the garden off the porch picnic table, but it was too heavy. Boiled [...]

As I search the bowl of blueberries for the bluest black ones … I remember 4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie … and my son arranging battles between blueberries and grapes … The blueberries always lost because he ate them … ~ From “A Blueberry Pie” by Colleen I left Virginia for my [...]