I have two patches of tomatoes growing in my garden. One of these patches I grew from seeds. I nurtured them through their colicky baby-hoods. I rocked them all night long when they had fevers. I comforted them after they skinned their knees and taught them how to ride a bike. They are my babies [...]
This is Hal Sears. Hal and I used to work together at the Community Mercantile which is a cooperative grocery store in Lawrence, Kansas specializing in natural foods, organic produce, and a vast selection of bulk herbs.
Hal was the herb buyer for the store and for a few years, I was the ‘herb stocker [...]
A few weeks ago, I toured the home of Mary Carol Garrity during her summer open house.
Mary Carol Garrity is the owner of the fabulous Nell Hill’s and Garrity’s stores in Atchison, Kansas as well as the newly opened Nell Hill’s at Briarcliff in Kansas City.
She has also written several books on interior decorating as well [...]
Our first stop will be the urban slums.
Today, the world’s population numbers almost seven billion souls. Close to one billion of these souls live in urban slums.
The number of folks living in urban shanty towns is projected to triple in under fifty years.
So that will be three billion people living in cardboard shacks on [...]
Perched on the eastern banks of the wide Missourah, Atchison, Kansas was once a thriving river port and then the original terminus for the “Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” railroad. As a result the town experienced more than it’s fair share of boom times and fairly bursts at the seams with gorgeous mansions from [...]
My spinach has been growing gangbusters.
Fearing that the warmer weather might cause my spinach crop to bolt…
…like my arugula did.
I decided I better go ahead and harvest most of it and see if I could figure out how to ‘put it up’.
I collected enough spinach to fill a tall kitchen trash bag.
I set the bag [...]
My garden needed an urn…
An urn full of flowers for the center raised bed.
I was hoping to find a tall urn.
Or even better, a tall urn with a matching pedestal.
The Garden Center where I work carries all kinds of beautiful cement urns and I have been drooling over them for weeks trying to decide which [...]
On our recent trip to visit my sister-in-law and her family, I took my camera and walked around their sweet old neighborhood. Their home is the stately mission style house pictured above.
I love older styles of homes and if I ever get the chance, I would love to build another house inspired by a different [...]