Our house came with a field of wildflowers. There were mostly daisies that first summer. Then fewer daisies the next. It took me a few years to realize that you need to reseed every five years or so, especially after golden rod insinuates itself into the mix — like a stealth army — and soon has literally rooted out everything else. Then it’s time to mow, kill the old turf, plow under the field...
I’m not alone in hating spiders. According to the Statistic Brain Research Institute arachnophobia ranks third — right behind fear of public speaking and fear of death — among the country’s top phobias. Approximately 30 percent of all Americans are plagued by it. I won’t go into detail about when my fear of arachnids began — though it involved my first night away from home and a top bunk inches...
I planted Globemaster alliums three or four years ago. They’re the largest and most majestic plant from the ornamental side of the large allium family which includes chives, onions, shallots, leeks, and hundreds of wild and cultivated species. (Not surprisingly, allium is the Latin word for garlic.) In full bloom, Globemasters form 6 to 8-inch perfectly rounded heads which look like purple...
It’s been another passive-aggressive spring in southern New England. Showing up weeks late, spring arrived in a tremendous rush this year — trailing swarms of insects and rapidly pushing the temperatures up into the eighties. The daffodils and tulips which had been dozing under a blanket of snow were shaken rudely awake and forced into flower almost overnight. As a result, my spring bulbs which...
One grey day in the frozen depths of winter, I saw a flash of gold in the woods behind our place: fox! It moved with a wonderful fluidity and sense of purpose, but wary and close to the ground. Later, my husband thought he saw it again —disappearing down the old woodchuck hole in the underbrush — but then months went by without another sighting.
Galway Kinnell, one of America’s most honored and beloved poets, died last October at the age of 87. He was a physically imposing man — with a tough-guy face that belied a gentle and generous nature. He believed that the job of poets was to bear witness. “To me,” he said, “poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to...