Digging out the garden
With over three feet of snow in less than a week, there is little time to think about gardening. My wife and I are from the school that likes to make many small trips outside to incrementally shovel rather than waiting for all the snow to fall so that it must be removed in one […]
Freezing a feeding possum
One of the battles that gardeners have with wildlife is over compost. We see our piles as a way to transform plant waste into nutritious compost that will help the next generation of plants grow and be healthy. Wildlife often sees compost piles as a 24/7 diner where they can sample the latest seasonal fare. […]
Fall flowers
Though a frost has yet to coat my roof with a thin sheen of white, I know it is coming. Leaves fell in great bunches last week, the hostas have browned up and my lawn has put out that last spurt of growth requiring a final trim. I’ve been building an increasing amount of fires […]
The sweet smell of decay
The advent of autumn has always been bittersweet as the seasonal burst of a multifaceted patina of foliage is counterbalanced by the sad brown and gray death of its aftermath. I was in between these worlds this weekend as the first of a weekly raking regime started. I’ve always enjoyed raking as it is a […]
Pop, crackle, snap: It’s not a Rice Crispy
It was a dark and stormy night . . . Or at least it was incredibly windy as the porch light illuminated a rain of leaves being blown about like flat slices of snow during a blizzard. It seemed as if the peak of leaf season and their escape from perches high on maples, birches, […]
The existential pleasures of watering
It has been a toasty and dry summer on the East Coast, with nary a drop of rain from the sky to my yard in weeks. Thunderstorms roll through on a regular basis but it seems as if an invisible umbrella extends over my property as they hint of but never deliver water. Unlike last […]
Sunsets and moonrises
Though too few in number, we have experienced some spectacular sunsets. A few days ago, one particular sunset displayed for us constant changes in color and luminance. Every moment a new set of colors and shades emerged. Pinks, blues, reds, oranges. In the front of the horizon, behind us, on the side. It was one […]
Chilled expectations
It is the end of perhaps the most harsh February that I have had the displeasure to experience in recent memory. The worst was the winter of 1996 where nearly 120 inches of snow dropped in the Danbury, CT, region. But this winter is right up there with relentless blizzards coming one after another. Now […]
A (relatively) cold winter to bicycle and bird watch
We fled the North nearly three weeks ago to embrace the warmth of the South, in particular the Florida Keys, but like many snowbirds have discovered that we need to crowd together to stay warm rather than luxuriate alone in a humid, warm climate. Don’t get me wrong, mid-60 degree temperatures (during the day) beats […]
Southern comfort
Now that we have been in Florida for a week, my wife and I have thoroughly thawed out and started to brown up. In driving from the Northern portion of the state to the Florida Keys, the changes in vegetation were much more subtle than what we experienced on the earlier parts of our drive […]