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Thankful Coming and Going
It’s been a tough year. As you dig through the year, it seems like there’s been trouble and heartache in layer after layer. Sometimes the soil has been rocky, sometimes dry and hard. Other times it’s been overly soggy and wet. This is true on the level of politics, personal loss, world events, natural disasters.…
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A movie For Some Cold Winter Evening
“Glorious salvia which keep going until the first frost takes them.” We had wonderful rains this past week. I hardly stirred outside the whole day. A trip out to the mailbox in my Wellies was just about my only contact with my garden and the great outdoors. Late in the day my wife and I…
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Dahlias…slipping in and out of my life.
Plants, like people, come and go in our lives. Sometimes an odd jostling of our memories bring back to us people and plants we had forgotten. So, last week when we talked about zinnias, mentioning that some are known as dahlia flowered zinnias, I said to myself, “Hmm, dahlias. Maybe Nacogdoches folks would like to…
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A White Garden
I saw the most beautiful, white garden the other day in Lexington, Kentucky. It was inspiring to put it mildly. I wanted to go home and plant white stuff in my little walled garden. The garden is so small that it is very easy to transform it into almost any color theme. A flat or…
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A Meal for a Common Man / Eating Above Your Pay Grade
Last week my wife and I had the great fun of staying at one of the world’s most luxurious hotels. We were clearly living well above our pay grade. The proprietors specialize in treating folks well. I knew we were in for a treat when a staff member (unbidden) brought to our room a plate…
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Make us something like the low green moss
When I lived out in the country, I cut a short trail through the woods that were behind my home, a little stretch of about twenty yards. There was some dapple shade and it was there I’d planned to plant wild azaleas, a few camellias, and who knows what else…plants that would be happy living…
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Corn is legendary in Texas.
Nacogdoches unveiled a new sculpture of a Texas Revolutionary solider yesterday in our downtown’s historic district. The sculpture is in honor of the men from Nacogdoches who fought in the Texas Revolutionary war with Mexico. It reminded me afresh of the legend of San Jacinto corn. When important events transpire, wonderful stories grow like…
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They are a self-authenticating glory!
It is only right that we love our azaleas. One would need to be wicked not to like them. It would be like not believing in Santa Claus. Or despising him because he brought children presents only at Christmas. Azaleas are Christmastime, in the spring. When they are in bloom across the American South, they…
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“A Greek Chorus”
For the last couple of weeks we have been considering the harbingers and heralds of spring, plants which foretell, predict, and prophesy springs soon rival. These are plants that bloom in late winter, well in advance of spring, but tell us that its arrival is just at the door. This week let’s consider a…