New Soil

This week marks the end of one phase of my life. Saturday, a moving van is showing up, so that my husband and I can load up our few belongings and transport them to our new home in small-town, south Kansas. This week has been crawling by, feeling much like one feels at the top of a roller-coaster, knowing the rush is coming soon. Paint colors have been picked, garden plans have... Read More

Close to Eden

As I was thinking about my beginnings in gardening, I suddenly felt an acute empathy for so many people in my life who claim that they simply “don’t have a green thumb.” Most of them use stories of pathetic, wilted, porch-grown tomato plants and neglected, forgotten, (and thus) deceased herb pots as evidence of their lack of the “gardening gene.” I believe my empathy comes... Read More

The Winter Gardener

I am beyond thrilled to introduce my brilliant younger sister for a new series of blog posts! We may have to come up with a new blog name… Any ideas?? We have reached new heights of winter denial. My sister (following more than one family tradition) is writing about gardening, and I am typing her words as a four-foot drift continues to grow outside my back door. I think... Read More

Embracing January: Bear Hunting

Last Thursday, my younger sister called for mutual motivation to get our houses clean. We enthusiastically made our lists (I ignored the fact that I have four children under age four, which often renders list-making a ridiculous exercise), and we started wrapping up the phone call. I haven’t been so pumped up to scrub bathrooms in a good long time. Any mother of young children... Read More

Down home

Remember last week’s post about our miserable portrait studio experience? A couple days later, one of my husband’s coworkers (a photography hobbyist) said she was giving on-location family portraits as her Christmas gift! I’m so excited! A photo makes a great gift – even just a nice snapshot of a favorite person. Last week the kids and I made the ten-hour... Read More