Weeding out the bad/ that shouldn’t be there makes room for the good that should. Backstory: My wife wrote Earth + Us about pulling privet. This is an update. I was motivated to pull out a massive clump of several very old and large privet on my NW Georgia property (privet is an invasive, non-native…
Old satellite dish,/ turned skyward, filled with water:/ Fine redneck birdbath.
Natural yards for the birds, bees and butterflies — and for the pleasure they brings human senses — are nothing new. I personally have created my own natural yard for decades, as has my brother. Where did that inspiration come from? Our forest ranger father, who taught all my siblings that lawns were silly, foolish,…
Trees, wildflowers, birds,/ bugs, fields. The land teaches me / much. I want to share.
The Northwest Georgia summer is hot. That doesn’t surprise me. I expected the weight of heat like an oven. What shocks my mind, not my system, is that August on the banks of the West Chickamauga is not as uncomfortable as I remember Wisconsin being. Mid-August growing up in Milwaukee when it was 99 +…
Warm Feelings About Our New Solar Power Clothes Dryer I drive up the long and winding yellow dirt road that leads to our door. The shape of my front porch seems somehow different, somehow unexpected, somehow off balance. And yet our two-story house seems more home and homey than ever. Suddenly, I realize what’s making…
When the Old Woman of the Woods Calls The morning dawned only slightly humid and a bit cool for Northwest Georgia in August, perfect for a walk in the woods. My paths usually run through cedars and smaller trees on my property. On this particular morning it was clear: The Old Woman of the Woods…
The old couple’s peach tree up on Mowbray Mountain deep down in Tennessee was so overloaded that a giant limb split off the trunk and crashed to the garden floor. That still left more than two-thirds of the tree that they had planted intact and covered with delicious freestone fruit. A Good Fruit Trade Our…
Picking Redux: The Last of the Late Season Blueberries It was, they said, too late in the season to find even the last of the late season blueberries. For weeks, pickers and birds had scoured the field for the small, blue bursts of anti-oxidants and health and taste. OH! The taste! Our house chef was…
I was shocked to learn / why Southern women dont wear/ nylons: Chiggers itch.