Grandma’s House
My grandparents on my mother’s side lived on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin, in Brown County, near Green Bay. I grew up in Florida, far away, so I only got to visit the farm a few times. Yet even though my visits were infrequent, …
Everyday Magic
Clean as a Whistle
Rob and I did nothing but clean our house this weekend. We cleaned it from top to bottom. We washed all the baseboards and mopped all the floors and brushed all the furniture and cleaned the windows and the windowsills and all the moldings. Of …
A Roble Orange and Other Good Stuff
Last weekend went so smoothly it seemed sort of enchanted. Rob and I got so much done. And yet somehow, magically, we still found time to baby the cats and savor our homegrown citrus and have lots of dorky domestic fun. …
Pecans, a Pummelo, and More
Fall is here in all its glory. We’ve got camellias and sasanquas blooming like crazy, and our beech trees have turned gold. Bright satsumas and lemons hang like ornaments, like Christmas balls. The ageratum has turned ghostly. In the late afternoons the sun gets so …
October Glory
This weekend was a glorious one here in Quincy. The Korean mums put on a dazzling show, and the satsumas and lemons went about their slow business of ripening, displaying rich, soft shades of gold. The weather was so cool that I was able to …
On My Own
Rob was out of town this weekend, so I lived for two days in my weird Leslie way—getting up too early and eating funny things. I enjoyed delicious, salty popcorn suppers and spent most of my time happily puttering and rearranging things—I love to rearrange. …
More Memories of Mintwood
When my sister Kris and I were kids, we were big fort builders. We were always crouching in a fort under a tree. We built a great succession of forts, little lean-tos concocted without nails or screws. We’d usually stay in each place for about …
Trees
When I was a little kid, probably about nine, my father, one day, brought out a leaf collection he had made when he was about my age, about nine. I saw it only once, that one time, but I never forgot it. It was beautiful …
In the Depths of August
Yesterday I did a whole bunch of weeding while Rob mowed the lawn and cleaned out the gutters. I actually love to weed. It’s so peaceful and it gives me a chance to really look at my plants, really study them and their surroundings …
