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Nature Therapy
Nature makes us happier. Scientific research says so. Granted, the way it says so can feel like plowing through a lot of verbal sludge, peppered as it is with tables, ...
Club Notes Type: Cultivating Wisdom
Common as Dirt
It's amazing how few of us truly appreciate dirt. Look at the way we talk about it. Dirty thoughts are reprehensible; dirty linen is embarrassing; dirty tricks are mean. If ...
The Fall of Freddy
Fall in Vermont (at least briefly) is glorious. The air is crisp; the leaves are bright; and the grass has stopped growing, so there’s no need to mow the lawn. ...
Death and the Garden
One year some time back, when all of us were younger, Chester, our cross-eyed cat, killed a chipmunk. This would be all in a day's work for the average country ...
Moriarty in the Garden
There are 28 references to weeds in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, and almost all of them are mean. Weeds, according to Bartlett's chosen quotables, are variously dull, fat, filthy, oozy, poison, ...
By Any Other Name
Let’s talk about plant names. It turns out that there’s a lot more to them than just daisy or dandelion or tomato. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet’s most-quoted line is, ...
Planting Grandpa’s Garden
Two years ago this month, Randy-my husband-and I bought my grandfather's house. The house is in northern Vermont, on the shores of Lake Champlain, within spitting distance of Canada: driving ...
Rupp on Rocks
We put in a strawberry patch this year. Nothing huge, you understand: maybe 4 feet by 20, a nice strip along the fence on the upper side of the barn. ...
Plant Blindness
“Attention,” wrote the late poet Mary Oliver, “is the beginning of devotion.”
She meant that – in these easily distractable modern times – it’s all too easy not to ...
Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening
A few weeks ago, in a burst of ambition and historical culture, Randy and I took the kids on a week-long vacation to Washington, D.C. We had a high old ...
