being not doing

We seem to have the latest-blooming azalea varieties on our block, which leads us to wonder each year whether we’ve done something wrong and the bushes just aren’t going to bloom at all. However, except for immediately following the drought, they’ve always come through; this week the color of the buds is finally visible, casting [...]

It’s probably true that every small town has its dramas, but the ones in University Park seem to always fall out along lines of race and class. This shouldn’t surprise me, given that I live in a town that was incorporated with racial covenants in a county that was and is predominantly black. Language is [...]

After my excitement last week to have a dairy vendor at the Riverdale Park Farmers’ Market, I’m ticked off that the milk I purchased from J-Wen Farms was bad when we opened it, five full days before the sell-by date. It wasn’t totally rotten, but it was putting off an odd smell that my partner [...]

The lavender, when I first planted it last year. The lavender, today. When I created a spot for the lavender at the side of the porch steps last year, I was so proud of myself for keeping it alive in a pot inside all winter. Yes, it was a little wilted, and yes, it needed [...]

Two plants waiting for their spot in the ground. This week was the second of my local farmers’ market, and I found much to tempt me. You might think that having 70 plants on order would have satisfied the desire for flowers; you would be wrong. I managed to escape with only two Bee Balm [...]