country life
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Hedge of Thorns
When I was a little kid, I used to wonder about the magical hedge of thorns that protected Sleeping Beauty for a hundred years. Now that I am a grownup, it doesn’t seem so magical. In fact, I wonder how, after an entire century, the thorny hedge hadn’t taken over the entire castle and Sleeping Continue reading
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Your Package Has Been Delivered
When FedEx started including photos of delivered packages with notification of delivery, I think we all had high hopes that photos upon delivery would become standard and that delivery woes would be a thing of the past. (Forgive my optimism.) Not living in the city or even suburbs, theft of my packages is not an Continue reading
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Violet Unicorn Jelly
The best way to pick wild violets is sitting in the grass with a granddaughter on a sunny Sunday morning. The best reason to pick wild violets is to make violet jelly. And the best thing to do with violet jelly is to have a fairy tea party with lady finger sandwiches. So far, I Continue reading
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Shrooms!
As though bags of cucumbers and bushloads of tomatoes aren’t enough to deal with the week before heading back to school, we just discovered some amazing gourmet mushrooms growing along our driveway. These aren’t the cute little morrels that John found where the ginko trees used to grow. These babies are enormous. The first is Continue reading
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Trees Must Die
Another tree made it onto my hit list this week. It must come down. It has attacked and offended me. The tree is perfectly healthy. For years it has grown near the corner of our house, sneakily growing taller and reaching smidge by smidge over the driveway toward my car. And then, just as my Continue reading
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Squirrels with tiny shovels?
You know it has been a long winter when the woodland critters start digging themselves paths through the snow. This morning, I looked out the kitchen window to see not just prints but a regular daggone pathway leading from the house to a hydrangea bush. I figured it was a squirrel route, but squirrels (like my students) don’t have Continue reading
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How Much Honey?
It’s the big question everyone has when we harvest a honey box. How much honey is in there? Family wants to know, “Will we get some for Christmas?” Colleagues ask, “Will you have any to sell this year? Mr. Beekeeper asks, “How many pounds did I carry up from the bee yard?” Mrs. Beekeeper asks, Continue reading
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I’m Gonna Get Squashed
On a fishing pier Saturday with my mom, watching the waves roll to shore beneath us, I said, “Pretend it’s a tsunami and you have to outrun it.” Right. The great-grandmother to my grandkids had already walked close to twenty miles with me during our week at the beach. Running was not going to happen. Continue reading
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Berries and Bugs
It took a couple of weeks for the Japanese beetles to discover the blueberries. For those couple of weeks I blissfully picked a daily supply of berries, rejoicing in the amazing abundance of them. After three years of waiting, the bushes were loaded with fruit and every day or so just enough of them ripened Continue reading
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The Newbees Have Arrived
It’s a brisk morning, but delightful on the porch, where I am swaddled in a blanket, sipping hot coffee. From the comfort of my porch swing and the warmth of a sunbeam, I watch as BeeMan comes and goes from the bee yard. He is getting the hive ready for the new bees. Continue reading
Slightly Off the Grid 