When pumpkin time rolls around, we lay in a supply of chocolate. Not M&M’s or Snickers bars. We buy chocolate milk–small half pints of the cold stuff, ready to tuck into proffered pumpkins or grocery sacks or pillow cases when little ones come trick-or-treating....
It was a sparkling October morning in Flory Park along Mill Creek in Lancaster, PA. A beautiful patchwork of fallen leaves drifted on the surface of the lazy stream, as if showing off cherished varieties of local trees. Near the creek, seventy friends in sturdy boots...
As the days get shorter and the sun sinks lower, there is one thought on my mind: Will the pineapple sage bloom? It is October 21…and chilly. Back from a trip, I check the green tips of the plant that has been stretching up over the garden wall after a slow start from...
Deep blue salvia, stunning red dahlias, and the arresting green of hairy balls create a visual feast in my fireplace, all the more beautiful in their transience. Soon my flowers will give way to fires. It’s fall, though, right now—a time for all kinds of feasting. A...
Stretching my legs after an open convertible ride back from the Outer Banks, I wander by our biggest butterfly bush. Butterflies everywhere! The bright October sunshine is glittering not only against the blue sky, but off the skittish wings of joyous monarchs—four of...
September 29, 2014 In the misty pre-dawn, I run back and forth from the truck to the tarp, cradling boxes of Concord grapes in my arms. My father has died, and I am doing his work. On this one day a year, I am the grape lady. There are blue balloons flying out at the...
Tucked away in the attic are scrapbooks half a century old. Crumbling brown petals from long-ago corsages stick to pages along with four-leaf clovers no longer green but treasured for whatever luck they brought me. To ramble in my garden is to open a scrapbook of...
Somewhere around the first of September it finally happens—a tiny flame of pure yellow appears at the top of a nondescript, ten-foot-tall weed just over my brick wall. The Jerusalem artichokes are starting to bloom! Since spring, the messy boring invasive greenery has...
I was eighteen when I wrote “The Prayer of the Butterfly” into my journal, copied from Prayers from the Ark. The poem enchanted me. I was enchanted also by butterflies and the ditzy life they led. Imagine your life work being to flutter beautiful wings and go from...
I opened the front door to get more of the morning through the glass storm door, then blinked in surprise as a squirrel on the lawn turned and ran toward me. I saw herwhite feet right away. We have been noticing Socks for years, frisking in the white oaks and in our...
