At one point during our Tennessee visit last week, Dad grabbed my arms and said “Those are digging arms!” It’s true, I do have digging arms. I’ve dug so many holes around the yard that not only could I not recall them all, I’ve also become a very efficient digger. I know the spots in my yard that can be worked, and those that can’t. To Joe’s chagrin, the first few years in our house I managed to find every buried concrete slab, brick and cobble stone. There has been at least once that he used the truck and a chain to rip a large four foot slab from the…

Royalty visited our garden this afternoon. After our caterpillar died, I figured our butterfly season was over, until this lovely monarch lighted down on the zinnias. And we waited near the red carpet to get a picture. The youngest confessed to having ill intent towards it (as he does with most bugs), so we sent him to the deck after he’d had a good look.

For several months I’ve been biking to work out. By biking, I mean pedaling on a recumbent bike with a built-in fan and bucket seat in front of 6 tv screens at the Y. I do pedal hard and push myself for 45 minutes and have seen good results, but I kept getting told I should try the cycling class. So I tried the cycling class. Here’s what I learned: 1. I need to wear longer shorts. Flappy breezy running shorts on a bike seat is just wrong.  2. Nalgene bottles are not any easier to drink out of while biking than while hiking. As a person who manages to…

I pulled out my Canon Rebel t4i this past weekend and can’t seem to put it down. I had forgotten how much fun I have shooting with my camera as opposed to the phone. I added another round of fertilizer and Epsom salts to the tomatoes, and based on the results, I think I have over fertilized. The tomatoes themselves look pretty good, but the leaves have burned edges, spots, and are yellowing. I really hope I’m not dealing with a bacterial/fungal/disease issue, but I will move the tomatoes to a new location next summer to be sure. Instead of focusing on the dead and dying, I’m enjoying capturing the…

The Handmade Market is this Saturday. Do you know what this means? It means I’ve got to get planning and packing! Now that I’ve amassed these new ceramic pendants, I need an efficient way to display them other than spreading them out on the table. I swore I wasn’t going to get into jewelry making, but with the crazy shoulder pain I’ve been experiencing, the work on smaller pieces is a welcome reprieve. Also, I’m thinking of having some new prints on display even though I told Joe that I was I was done printing stock and would just work on selling what I had.

This post is for my friends who wonder if I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. I haven’t. It’s the busiest time of the year for me. My 3 hour course is coming to a close, which means I’m catching up of grading and trying to prep for next week during which I’ll have to grade 11 reports and administer a final exam. I’ve also been cranking out hand built pottery in hopes of one more firing before Christmas. We were out of town visiting family for Thanksgiving, which usually demands three days of hermitude to recover from. Winter blues have hit. Winter blues affect me as follows: my…