I cannot imagine Christmas without a Christmas Tree to decorate and enjoy. So many ornaments carry memories. During our 2 years in Beijing, China as 'Foreign Experts' we learned about some of the historic stories and tales. Monkey King is the main character in the book Journey to the West. This is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty. It is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. We met…
I am a reader but garden books never had a big place in my life until our family was preparing to leave New York City for the wilds of Heath. By happenstance I was given Onward and Upward in the Garden (1979) by Katharine S. White with an introduction by her husband E.B. White. I had tended vegetable gardens, but never gave a thought to flower gardens. However, that is where Mrs. White’s heart lay. The very first…
Last week the Historic Deerfield Annual Christmas Wreath Workshop was held at the Deerfield Community Center. The room was alive with energy, Christmas carols and cookies. The air was filled with the scent of evergreen trees. Piles of holly berries, kumquats, teasels, pine cones were everywhere. For years volunteers of every age have descended on the Community Center to make merry and create beautiful Christmas wreaths. Tinka Lunt told me that twenty years ago Scott Creelman, a member…
Why mast years? This year a heavy crop of acorns is falling on the ground. Just look under any oak tree, or walk across the campus at Greenfield Community College. These acorns are the most visible crop of tree seeds which are also called ‘mast.’
I did not note my first Blogaversary in 2008 but we were rather caught up with an amazing storm. https://www.commonweeder.com/heaths-ice-storm/ In 2009 I celebrated with a giveaway https://www.commonweeder.com/our-first-winner-is/ In 2010 I visited Buffalo for their Garden Walk which was fabulous and chronicled here. That tour was the first of others I was to take organized by the Garden Bloggers. However I was again too busy to note my blogaversary https://www.commonweeder.com/chicken-house-2-mine/ It doesn't look like much, especially in December,…
Squanto, of the Pautuxet tribe, was a part of my childhood Thanksgivings. Squanto (Tisquantum) was captured by English explorers in 1605 and spent a number of years in England and learned to speak English. He also found his way back to the Plymouth Bay area in 1619 and learned that his own tribe had all died from disease. Massasoit, the sachem of the Wampanoags, and Samoset who had learned a bit of English from fishermen, decided that…
With the gift giving season drawing near I want to spread the word about new books that would please gardeners of every sort. In my house books are the one gift we know will delight. The Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leendertz When The Half-Hour Allotment book showed up in my mailbox I was delighted to think of a system that would teach me to work an allotted half-hour at a time. How understanding such a system would be…
On this Bloom Day I don't have any blooms, but I do have color. For the past week we have looked out at a hard frost. Beautiful in its own way. However we do have color. Somehow the yellow twig dogwood never photographs as accurately as my eyes when I look out my kitchen window and see the sun shining on what is a more chartreuse dogwood than its name suggests. It is because of its brilliant color…
The Climate Change Rally in Greenfield brought many children, inspired by young Greta Thunmberg, to the Greenfield Common on Friday, September 20. The Children and the Adults were all protesting. Our climate is dangerously changing and there are protests this day all around the globe. Some Students went to Boston to participate in the Youth Climate Strike What can we all do? Vote! Learn about ways you can stop global warming. We can't leave it all up to…
Everybody is talking about hemp. When we recently attended a family gathering in Vermont we talked to three of my young cousins, Heidi, Tammy, and Debby who had planted hemp. A change in the Vermont laws now makes it legal to plant hemp. Four hundred and fifty or so farms are now doing just that. Dairy farming is not as profitable as it was, and hemp is now in demand. Please remember, industrial hemp does not contain THC,…