Writing fiction — the magic’s all tied up in the details

Despite the thirty-six fast-moving and unrelated balls I have in the air right now, I’m thinking about my novel again. The characters keep whispering bits and pieces to me as I build bamboo trellises and snake cotton string through ferny leaves to support the tomato plants. Lucy tells me more about her uncomfortably strong feelings [...]

Transplanting, growing and thriving: some thoughts on success

I planted raspberry canes in one of the six beds over in my mother in-law’s yard our first summer here (has it really been three years?) but as with everything over there, they didn’t get enough sun. This spring I dug them up and moved them to a very sunny spot on the side of [...]

How does your garden grow

Oh, my. Summer is at the gate, straining at her lead and ready to gallop. So much growth happening so fast and always the sense that I can’t ever catch up. Clearly I’m still too fragmented in my efforts. Two years ago I began to envision work that allows me to be at home, pay [...]

Fruits of my laboring breath

Wheeze… wheeze… I meant to take the camera out this weekend. The yard is spilling over with lush green and I’m sure the light in the afternoons had that gold-filter quality that makes the world feel this close to sepia. But I squinted a lot due to headaches and couldn’t get over feeling sorry for [...]

Weeding out the hope

I’m currently enjoying the benefits of having so little work last fall that I was able to clean up and amend the garden beds to ready them for spring planting. Sure, back then I didn’t think of it as a benefit, and I thought so even less when we ran out of money a couple [...]

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