Tree Cookies
This month we mourned the passing of this mighty oak, one of the original trees planted on Duke’s West Campus. It was all the buzz in the sociology-psychology building. Sadly, no one could recall the tree’s name. We’ll have to give it the posthumous name of a dead social scientist. Apparently the tree was terminal, […]
Birches
Nature is my first love and main source of inspiration. Lately I’ve been trying to express this in paintings. Bored with watercolors, I recently decided to give encaustic painting a try. This is an ancient form of art using hot melted wax with added pigments, and has a very interesting history. The ancient Greeks used […]
A Walk through Duke Gardens
On Saturday I woke up at the crack of dawn and headed to Duke Gardens. I had a homework assignment due at noon that day for my photography class, and I figured the gardens could provide some interesting subject material. There were snow clouds in the sky, and not a ray of sunshine, which concerned […]
Pax
Farthing Pond is frozen over for the third time this year.
All creatures great and small
Winter Storm Leon moved into Durham last night, dumping several inches of snow along with plummeting temperatures. When I woke up this morning I noticed our feral cats, Sunshine and Gracie, weren’t at their usual spot waiting for me to come out and feed them. I saw their footprints in the snow and followed them […]
The Flowers and the Polar Vortex
I miss the mountains, but living down here in the Triassic Basin has its advantages. The abundant sunshine is good for the soul. I was reminded on Friday of another reason I love living here: the 12-month growing season. After the coldest week we’ve had in a long time, I was astounded to see our […]
Christmas on the Creeper
The day after Christmas I took my bike up to the Virginia Highlands. My destination was the Virginia Creeper Trail, an old railroad line that was turned into a 33-mile trail back in the 80s. It is one of the best bike trails in America in one of the most beautiful places on earth. My […]
The Harvest
This week we brought our fingerling sweet potatoes up from the basement where they’d been curing after this fall’s harvest. Unfortunately, our basement wasn’t as cool as we’d thought, so they were a little soft. Next year we’ll need to keep them under the fan. This hasn’t made our little babies any less tasty, though—they are […]
The coming plague
Triangle friends, I hope today’s headline scares you into reading this post. If you haven’t wrapped your oak trees yet, you’re running out of time. In December the female moths, after mating, will crawl up the tops of these trees and birth hundreds of green caterpillars unless they are stopped in their tracks. If you’re […]
The rogue squash
This year we had some butternut squash (Cucurbita moschata) grow up out of nowhere in our backyard. I’m sure a kindly bird dropped the seeds off for us (unless there is a Squash Fairy.) I cut off a piece and tasted it; it was the most delicious piece of raw squash I’ve ever had. Later […]