Finding Wonderful Hidden Wildflowers: Haiku

It is often so/ that when we clear dross and junk,/ we find wonderful. Using a loping shears to clear underbrush and non-native privet from around the hardwood trees in my back yard reveals an undergrowth of black-eyed susans and other hidden wildflowers. Sometimes you have to burn the grasses and weeds from large fields, […]

Good peaches mean wasting fruit if you don't get to them

Peach Is Terrible To Waste: Wasting Fruit Lesson

In my world, wasting fruit seems to be a travesty of the highest order. I can’t seem to throw anything out. Even if it’s molding or rotting, I’ll yank it from the fridge, scrape the mold or rot off, throw it in the blender, and make a smoothie out of it. I might cut it […]

Peel Peaches with Nature's Guy -- easy cooking hack, July 2019

Peel Peaches Perfectly Prompt! Cooking Hack

Why peel peaches? If you’re making a smoothy or blending peaches for fruit leather, I don’t recommend it. But if you’re making a peach cobbler, peach crisp or peach ice cream, maybe you don’t want that skin floating around! You need to peel peaches. But wait! PUT DOWN THAT KNIFE! There’s an easier way. In […]

Fruit trade - peaches or tomatoes - everybody wins

Fruit Trade Everyone Wins– Haibun

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 […]

Trees in my yard - bio diversity in Northwest Georgia

Trees In My Yard, Peaceful Evenings, Improv Piano, And Learning

This evening, just before the sun set, I walked around the edge of my driveway, taking photos of tree in my yard (specifically on the edge of my property). I was stunned by the bio-diversity of this small plot of land. within the distance I can throw a baseball (which isn’t very far), I have […]

orange and black butterfly on woodland sunflower, NW Georgia, July 2018, part of a natural yard

Wildflowers and Butterfly Beauty: Three For The Price Of One

Wildflowers and butterfly beauty is one of the best parts of rural life. As people go back to the woods or the fields, focusing on being self-sustaining and off-the-grid, one of the first questions they ask is: “What should I DO?” One of the most vital things I tell them is what they should NOT […]