Behold, potentially one of the best photos of Robby ever:

(SOOC (straight out of camera) - Am I supposed to tell you that? I saw that on a blog recently. I never edit any of my photos, so am I supposed to say that for every photo I post? Surely not . . .)
Behold, two boys, [...]

Several of you have said to me recently, via comment or email, something along these lines. You want to grow some food this year. You don’t know where to begin. You’re overwhelmed. You have a “black thumb.”
I know how you feel. Last year around this time I was determined to plant a vegetable garden, and [...]

It’s funny, just the other day I was thinking about this little guy.

Remember him?
I wondered where he was. How his parents were doing. If they were all . . . somewhere. Pessimistically, I figured they probably weren’t, and I was briefly, illogically sad about that.
This morning I finally got around to going out and refilling [...]

“When I finished writing this, the thermometer outside my door read 18 below zero. I now know that spring will never come. I shall spend the rest of my life reading seed and plant catalogues, and books about gardens and the people involved with them.”
This is a quote from Jamaica Kincaid’s “My Garden (Book):” It [...]

I returned from our Thanksgiving excursion to find many of these:

I can only assume these are vole holes, based on the narrow tunnel down to each bulb. It just looks like it must have been done by something small, mouse sized, and that mouse-sized beast took off with probably a third of the tulip [...]

So, as you know we’ve been sick. And as such, some things really fell by the wayside around here - I have yet to see the bottom of my kitchen sink, for example. It’s to be expected really and is fine. But unfortunately we missed the whole leaf-falling-on-lawn thing. So now our entire yard is [...]

Outside: wind and rain.
On the stove: two pots. One boiling chicken for tonight’s Chicken and Dumplings, the other with the rest of the chicken and some vegetables for stock and Chicken Noodle Soup later on.
Open on the table: three lovely cookbooks. The Joy of Cooking and The Art of Simple Food, both on loan  from [...]