being not doing

7:30am First pot of coffee of the day brewed! We are checking out the morning TV news, for the first time in memory, to see how long the lines are in Virginia. Not too long, and we catch one really happy looking black guy about our age coming out of the polls […]

Dragonflies mating on our porch post.
I went outside this afternoon to enjoy the unseasonably warm day, and after my mole eyes adjusted to the sun, I noticed a pair of dragonflies mating on our porch. These dragonflies have been around the yard for a while now, and I also see them in the town […]

The new mini-bed of irises and prickly pear.
In keeping with my efforts to preserve all the plants I find around my yard, I volunteered to provide homes for any leftovers from the town’s annual plant exchange. I arrived home on Sunday evening to find bags of plants on the porch: bluebells, irises, prickly pear […]

The front daylily bed, exploding with growth.
Aster at the end of the front bed, looking like it might actually get bushy this year.
It’s been raining! This is a good thing, both for the new shrubs and the region as a whole. Coming from farmland, I’m always appreciative of the rain, but this year […]

Grape hyacinth in the front lawn.
One of the nicer aspects of restoring order to our neglected yard has been discovering new plants as we weed and mulch parts of the garden that had been completely overgrown by liriope and ivy. I’ve spoken about the appearance of new clumps of bulbs along the side beds, […]

This week has been rainy and I’ve focused on killing unwanted yard invaders. Chickweed is sprouting like crazy all over the town, spurred on by last year’s drought, and I’ve tried to clear the larger patches of it from the front yard. I’ve also tried to catch the dandelions before they go to […]

Bloomin’ quince.
With the official coming of spring, plants are bursting into bloom all over the yard. The flowering quince has been in full bloom all week, joined yesterday by the forsythia and the opening of the daffodils. The flowers were a nice reward for the work I’d put into clearing the beds, and […]

Road salt heading to the Chesapeake Bay.
One of the things I hate the most about living out here is the way they deal with winter weather. Or rather, the ways in which they don’t deal with it. During the first year we were here, there was a blizzard. A good old-fashioned three-feet-of-snow-shuts-the-city-down-for-a-week […]

Last week I saw my first new life bird of the year, a Pileated Woodpecker, in the woods on the north side of town. They’re urban woods; stands of old growth trees, but with buildings visible at every point within. They line the creek that divides the north side of town from the […]

Rear: tomatillos, arugula, and watermelons. Front: tomatoes, eggplants, sweet potatoes, and ‘Peachy Mama’ peppers.
Today I picked up the last box of our summer farm subscription (one of the food sources described in an article co-written by our neighborhood drop-off coordinator). This week’s box was one of the most bountiful of the summer, and […]