One Cobble at a Time

Things of Today

Wake up earlier than I wanted to fix breakfast. Birthday boy requested waffles. Drop Kiki off to take the ACT test. Harvest two giant batches of grapes. Realize that there are just as many left on the vines. Put first set of grapes into sink full of water to find all the hiding bugs. Mow [...]

Grape Season

When you plant a dozen tiny grape sprouts in the ground, they do not much look like a hedge of vines. Then when you have to baby them through the summer and three quarters of them die anyway, it is discouraging. But there comes a time six or seven summers later when huge vines threaten [...]

Flowers in My Garden

Sometimes things are serendipitous. In June Gleek found a tiny basil sprout and tried to replant it. This led to me buying basil seeds and planting them. While we were at it, we scattered a mix of wild flower seeds. They grew. This is what I see outside my kitchen window and it makes me [...]

Cabbage Farming is More Adventurous Than Intended

(Warning: this adventure contains hornets, a moment of panic, but no serious injuries. If I ever have serious injuries to report, I’ll not begin that story by talking about cabbage.) Near the end of third grade, local kids are each given a cabbage sprout and a challenge to grow it over the summer. In theory [...]

Summer Lilac

This is a Summer Lilac. It is also known as Buddleia Davidii or Butterfly Bush, but I like the name Summer Lilac. It lets me imagine that I can hold on to spring time so long as the bush is in bloom, and this bush blooms all summer. We had one long ago, but it [...]

Irises as Spanish Dancers

My Spanish dancers are blooming. Okay, they’re Irises, but every time I see them I think of the swirling skirts of Spanish dancers. Even holding still the petals seem full of motion. I also love the way that the petals sparkle when you get up close to them in the sunlight. This year’s crop is [...]

Spring Day

My heart always lightens when I can step outside my front door and see flowers in bloom. The crocus always comes first. I love crocus because it is the promise of spring to come. Hyacinths are next. They fill the air with fragrance. Soon I will have daffodils. Then tulips. Then lilacs. I love spring. [...]

Pears, guilt, and cooking during shipping week

There were pears on my front porch; the last fruits from our tree which we’d not given away. They sat there in a row where we’d placed them to ripen. They’d ripened fine, but they continued to sit while we all walked past them off to school, back from school, running errands, shipping packages, fetching [...]

Arbors, Porch Swings, and My Gardening Summer

I should not be looking at arbors and gazebos online. There are so many more urgent and important purchases for us to make. We’re in the fat part of our income cycle, but another lean time is ahead and our surviving it depends upon me being wise now. Buying an arbor does not count as [...]

Gardening Over Time

“Lawn is boring,” the gardening book said. “Why fill your garden with boring lawn when there are so many other things you can plant instead?” It was 1999 when I read those words and believed them. I was in the middle of my year of peace after a tumultuous five years of life upheaval. It [...]