This & That

The apple tree was a gift. We’d just moved to a new home and I had a new baby on my hip. Friends brought lunch…and an apple tree.  We did not have a per­fect spot for the tree, so we plant­ed it in the best spot we could. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this was part­ly under the shade of

  We start­ed fall cleanup in the gar­den this past week­end. I can hard­ly bear it, but needs must. Took down all the climb­ing and tan­gled beans, which was a work­out in and of itself, and which opened things up con­sid­er­ably. My hus­band built a new peony/dahlia gar­den fea­ture that we’re awful­ly excit­ed about even

I was a born a week after the moon land­ing in 1969. Some­how, in fam­i­ly sto­ry­telling and conversation—and lat­er, in my education—I came to under­stand that my birth­day was spe­cial. That I myself was…well, special…simply for hav­ing been born dur­ing such a his­toric week. In school, we watched a reel of the icon­ic footage of Neil

Our gar­den is behind sched­ule this year. An unco­op­er­a­tive Min­neso­ta spring com­bined with health issues con­spired against us. We just man­aged to get the seedlings we’ve been grow­ing in the laun­dry room plant­ed this past weekend—they were start­ing to look a titch ane­mic under their arti­fi­cial lights. It was an all-hands-to-work sort of week­end to

A cel­list-friend invit­ed me to a cel­lo mas­ter class last week­end. The invi­ta­tion made me laugh. “Won’t I be a bit con­spic­u­ous as a non-cel­list at a cel­lo mas­ter class?” I asked. She assured me I would not be. And I was­n’t. There was an entire audi­ence there and I’d like to think you could

“…spaghet­ti pie meant Gram’s gar­lic bread, which was the best thing this side–and prob­a­bly the oth­er side–of the Mis­sis­sip­pi. Crispy crust, soft and squishy in the mid­dle, lots of but­ter, and gar­lic you could still smell in the house the next day.” (Giant Pump­kin Suite, pg. 60)   It was high school home­com­ing this past

On one of my reg­u­lar walk­ing paths, the grassy boule­vard has been replaced by plant­ed prairie. I am all for these prairie restora­tion efforts. I know that prairie patch­es will do more than sim­ply make for a more inter­est­ing walk for me—they bring in pol­li­na­tors and crit­ters, fil­ter water and pre­vent ero­sion etc. Prairie places

I attend­ed a won­der­ful tea par­ty this past weekend—complete with hats and gloves, fun games, inter­est­ing women, a lit­tle poet­ry, and an astound­ing array of deli­cious food—decadent quiche, lit­tle sand­wich­es, sal­ads, scones and treats. The works, I tell ya! (I can’t believe I did­n’t take a pic­ture of the food!) There was also iced tea and

  When the writ­ing is going badly…and some­times when it is going well…I pack up note­books and pens and print­ed drafts and head to the Min­neso­ta Land­scape Arbore­tum. It’s a bit of a dri­ve from my house and so I always feel like I should spend hours and hours there once I arrive. This is

    When our son went off to col­lege a few years ago, I pan­icked in the park­ing lot. We said our good­byes, I tried not to cry but failed, he put his giant man-child arms around me to com­fort me…and then he walked one direc­tion and we went the oth­er. It remind­ed me of