I didn’t know that fruit grows in cycles until I moved to this house 19 years ago and started a long-term relationship with fruit trees. Some years are stone fruit years (plums, in my case, but elsewhere peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries) and some are not. Here, it’s an every-other-year pattern, and this year is an […]
Last week I drove down to Berkeley, CA — approximately 130 miles from my house — to water my sister’s orchids. This was not the original plan. When Sarah decided to go diving in Bali, she offered me her apartment as a refuge, writing retreat, change-of-pace place if I needed one. Which sounded great to […]
Spring. I never remember what it’s like until it comes around again, and then I’m bowled over, each year as if it were all new. The scents! The colors! The bravery as daffodils get snowed on again! The first robin! The first quail (today, in the driveway, little chatterbox). Last summer my front yard was […]
I am not a farmer. I’m not even much of a gardener. My skills relate to hiring smart people and then agreeing with their ideas, which is how I come to have any sort of garden at all. But for the last few years, water has been in short supply in California. The combination of […]