Let’s keep the Earth clean. Do you love the Earth? I do. PEOPLE! Don’t litter. — day 22, by Tati
Earth Day Haiku (by Tati)
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Category: In the Dirt
10 Things I Love About You
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Grey hair in streaks, falling straight down. Friendship, translucent and strong as fishing line Books, stacks of texts, leaning. Paper birds, emerging from the wet, hempy mash Disagreement, and dissent. Chickens in the back 40. Raised boxes and their bees. Voice, a cool shaded pond. Bob. Tomorrow, empty canvas. — for Susan, Day 12, Poetry Month
On Having to Cut Down a Tree
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Is it worth being sentimental over one tree? The last time I mentioned to friends that we might have to cut down our two huge Norway maples, one FB friend replied “good riddance. They are invasive species to New England anyway.” I sometimes think that our attachments to trees or cars or other “stuff” isn’t…
In Chaos, Loving Kindness Endures
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Trying to come up with a single small kindness to write about today for Fiona’s blogsplash has been one of the more difficult writing assignments I have been given in a while. Some of you know me, and so know the story of our family. If you don’t, I’ll just say that ours is not…
You Are Doing It All Wrong
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“You are doing it all wrong.” I go through distinct phases of my week/day/life when I can clearly hear myself telling this to myself. It might not matter exactly what I am doing — anything really from cleaning the house to baking a chicken — but the message is clear: you are doing it wrong.…
A Patriot in the Garden
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You know all that flag-waving, “true-American” rhetoric we hear from the Rush Limbaugh conservatives? I was thinking about that today, as I was pondering getting our organic garden ready to spring planting. It’s Ok. I know I am preaching to the choir generally. But a good argument is worth saying, just in case it’s seeps…
We Interrupt this Life for a Meltdown
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Have you ever been puttering along a normal sort of way, and then suddenly, without warning, found yourself in a big wet, messy heap? Once when I lived in London, I drank a bit too much at the after-hours while working at the pub. I was walking back home around 2 a.m. and one minute…
What an Orchid Eats
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The orchid and its splitting leaves Sat drying out on the Tank of our toilet for a Year, uncomplaining about The noise, and the sheetrock dust, but, Most of all, The proximity to the Water it desired but could not Taste. Me and the orchid eyed Each other every damn day. Well, that is, what…
The End of Summer
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August retreats. It hands us back the year. Summer isn’t truth, but it is (as Harris Telemacher recites) “What we wish were true.” So many of us Shove out this Season of perspiration, lazily Forgetting how it Slows us Beguiles us Presses us to hold still Find the windy spaces With a friend In the…
This Orchid and I
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… we don’t know Anything about each other. Curving leaves Hidden roots One long dead Stem. How much Attention Does she need? Day 25, A River of Stones
Perennial Work
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Our house had so many little projects after we moved in. Not the least of those was the gardens. The previous owner had some kind of psychotic idea of planting… Which is to say, she is exactly like me. So I really love to putter in the flower beds and took on the notion that…
What Can You Do in 10 Minutes?
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What can you get done in 10 Minutes? Right now, my kids are brushing teeth and puttering about in the last few minutes before school, I am stealing away (aside really… they are right behind me!) to post here. So many times we say “I don’t have time!” Yet what happens when we make a…
The Lawn Mower Heard Round the World
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My husband is mowing the lawn right now… Shhhh. Can you hear that? No that isn’t (just) the sound of our gas-guzzling 42″ Ariens Super-Deluxe Tractor Mower/Cheese Slicer. That’s the thundering palpitation of his heart. Damn, some things a woman just CANNOT get in the way of, no matter how environmental-y she is. A man and the…
On Not Walking
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Walking is joy. I love walking like I love Ira Glass and peanut butter cups. I am surprised that since I moved back to America from London, that I have given it up. Just basically decided that even though it is one of my favorite things to do in the world, I am not even…
Where the Wild Onion Grows
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Wild onions grow everywhere here. I smell them through the moon roof on those particular weekend days when men are at home in their kingdom yards, busy mowing alone and in harmony. If I made this up, forgive me, but I think maybe someone told me that a long time ago this entire area was…
