Archive for August 2021

Today is the first day of September, which for me will always mean that Fall has begun! And, with Fall comes harvest – a time of “gathering in.” All the planting, all the nourishing, all the work and all the joy have brought us to this place. And now we see the fruit of our…

I grew up in south Georgia surrounded by a vine that was lush and green with fragrant blossoms. It also grew like wildfire and was practically impossible to destroy.             Kudzu.             Some of you are nodding in recognition and others are ignorant of the scourge of this beautiful vine. Evidently, at the 1876 Philadelphia…

It is incredibly hard to “quit while you’re ahead.” To be sidelined in the middle of living out your dream. For whatever reason. And yet, God, the Master Gardener, “cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more”. John…

It’s called The Big Oak.             My Georgia hometown’s most popular tourist attraction. After all, this southern live oak tree (Quercus virginiana) dates back to 1680 and is currently 68 feet tall and has a limb span of 165 feet. It is also where my mother was born in 1927, at the home of my…

            Can you imagine walking into a room with over a thousand fluttering butterflies?             I did just that at the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center at Callaway Gardens in Georgia and it was quite a colorful experience. Not to mention hot and humid, out of necessity. In this glass-enclosed ecosystem more than fifty species…