Sorry About That Dead Body

I met my new neighbor the other day when she threw a dead squirrel over the fence into my yard.
I was sitting in the swing minding my own business when I heard the sound of someone clearing brush on the other side of the fence, and two people talking. I listened, to see [...]

Linus Waits for the First Iris

I’ve never watched a flower open. I mean, sat in front of a bud for an entire day watching its petals unfold to the sun. This will probably come as a surprise to my wife, Teresa, and to Barbara, the owner of Wild Birds Unlimited, where I work am employed. (Both of [...]

I’ve Been Flocked!

I have this little competition going on with Iris at Greensboro Birds–things like who sees the first hummingbird or the last junco of the season, or who gets the coolest photos of different species of birds together. It’s sort of like going up against Tyler Hansbrough in a game of one-on-one…
Well, Iris might have [...]

Propitiating the Snow Demons

I grew up in South Carolina, where snow is only slightly less frequent than Halley’s Comet, so when snow is predicted, I check the weather forecasts obsessively.
This most recent storm first appeared on the extended forecast Thursday morning, and by Saturday, the various prognosticators were certain that we would get snow, the only question being, [...]

Slow Children Playing

There were some really dumb kids in the neighborhood where I grew up. How dumb? So dumb that the city posted signs warning motorists about the slow kids playing in the street. Get it??? Slow kids???
I’m not sure exactly which dumb kids the sign refers to. The ones who nearly [...]

Becoming a Yankee Gardener

I saw a funny skit a while back–I think Al Gore might have been in it, playing himself–about what would have happened had he been President for the last 8 years. The scene was the Oval Office, with a blizzard raging outside, and he was talking about how we had solved the problem of [...]

Southern Snow Protocol

Take a random group of Southerners, ask us to run home and get photos of our houses, and I’ll guarantee you that 90% of us will come back with snow pictures. Someone unfamiliar with the American climate might reasonably suppose from the photos that North Carolina’s annual snowfall is comparable to that of Buffalo. [...]

Garden Art Meets Academic Prose

A climbing rose has appeared in my garden, likely planted by the garden gnomes, since I have no recollection of planting it, and I was thinking how grand it would be to have a sturdy trellis for it to climb. I have some scraps of cedar wood that would make a fine trellis, if [...]

The Color Purple

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”
–Shug, in The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Not wishing to annoy God more than necessary, I made sure to notice all the purple in my garden…even the weeds.

Crybaby Plants

At first, all I was going to do this week was dig up the turf for my new flowerbeds.
“But we’ve been in these pots our whole lives,” the Wax Myrtles cried. “Our roots are all twisted up.”
“I know, guys, but I want to wait until the Fence Men finish so they don’t step on [...]