-Miracles in the Garden with Susan Yoder Ackerman

Toward the end of summer, flowering mint drives the wasps and bees mad with delight. But this year, I made sure the insects were not the only ones delighted by the mint—or should I say mints—growing in our own back yard. Enjoying mint tea is nothing new to me. In my...

I love the way summer dotes on us with its predictable and its unpredictable surprises. I look forward to the royal pink crape myrtle carpet in our back yard. When I see these buds as fat and orange as carrots, I know it’s almost Turk’s cap lily time. And sure enough,...

A dozen hungry goldfinches bob and bounce on billows of yellow coneflowers. A gray hairstreak butterfly, not an inch long, trails its delicate fringes on the surface of one of the brilliant blossoms. Bees and dragonflies of every hue teem on the flowers that grow and...

“You got strawberries?” A boy on a bike paused at the entrance to Lisa’s Garden. “Nope,” I replied. “Just flowers.” He rode on, with a puzzled backward glance. Crowds of people were parking along the street and strolling across the grass, stopping to admire a dazzling...

A hundred years ago, my grandfather brought his wife Irene and their five little children to their new home. It’s the very house I live in today. My father was the littlest boy at the time, and all his life he remembered the delight of dangling his feet over the side...

When Christmas rolls around, our fireplace is front and center. But it’s a place for knitting stockings, not hanging them. There is no mantel. The stockings would be toast in no time. On Christmas Eve, we usually line the stockings up on a nearby couch. On Christmas...