Even Charles Dickens, who wrote many books , 20 to be precise, can have periods  when he cannot think of a plot and when his recent books are not getting the attention he got after writing The Pickwick Papers in serial form. Nowadays Dicken's book A Christmas Carol is everywhere, as it was after its immediate publication shortly before Christmas in 1843. But it was rough,  going.  The Man Who Invented Christmas, "based on the inspiring true story."…

A white Christmas is a sure thing. When we woke up on December  18, one week before Christmas, we received 16 inches of  lovely snow - not too heavy. It took a good part of the day to clear streets and sidewalks. I think we were all glad to return to  our houses where we could sit near our brilliant Christmas trees and enjoy a hot toddy - or a cup of hot cocoa. We watched the old…

The Annual Garden Calendar means you don't need to have been a University of Massachusetts student to benefit on their studies which is shared generously with all of us. This is just the beginning of information about vegetables and flowers - and weeds. The gardening year is very long - happily for us who love working in the garden - and strolling through our garden to admire our  work, and  the work of Mother Nature. The Garden Calendar…

Apparently many gardeners are finding the need to leave their beautiful old gardens and move on to new gardens, and finding books to find a new way. I can speak to this urge myself, having left my gardens in Heath, to create a compact stroll garden filled with trees, shrubs, flowers and a place to sit in Greenfield. I also needed a garden that would not need so much work. Windcliff: A  story of people, plants and gardens…

The Feast of Saint Nicholas is the beginning of our Christmas. December 6, 2007 is also the beginning of my commonweeder blog which I celebrate with great pleasure. Every year on this date I have thought about the many  wonderful gardeners and others who have shared their skills and talents with me.  I have learned and laughed and given thanks for my good fortune. This year as I celebrate my 80th birthday all these happy days of the…

Photos of my garden from the view from my office window is one way I keep track of weather and changes in the garden over all the seasons. After the drought this summer I did not expect three days of rain, sometimes very hard raid. Our garden sits on clay and a high water table. There are many floods but to have such a drenching at this time of the year is very unusual.  You can see we…

In these pandemic days we can get  depressed, or lonely, but I found a website Unsplash to remind you, and cheer you that happy days will come again. Unsplash has thousands of beautiful photographs for us all to use in our work or to amuse ourselves. Unsplash is "the internet's source of freely-usable images. Powered by creators everywhere." Here is the mystery and beauty of the aurora borealis. I am reminded of the night in Heath when our…

A Pandemic Thanksgiving calls for all manner of celebratory tricks. Of course, I had spent all Wednesday afternoon, and Thanksgiving morning (beginning at 6 am) doing more cooking to prepare the feast scheduled  for 3 p.m. It seems it doesn't seem to matter if the holiday meal is for three people or  the more routine crowd of 25. There is a lot to do. Once we got the turkey in the oven Henry and I stopped for a…

Slowly, slowly, the leaves and fallen and now it is time to get serious about cleaning up the leaves.  We have two river birches and many large shrubs, but they are not the only ones responsible for all  the leaves in our garden. The garden to the south sends us many leaves from three large oaks. The house to the north has an enormous maple and we have not really begun to clean up these leaves. Now is…

The brilliant colors we have enjoyed this fall have been glorious, but with all the rain and wind, snow and frost, the landscape is quieter. Field Maloney was out in the orchard on October 30, picking the last of the apples for West County Cider.  Maloney is of the school that requires cider be made from fully ripe apples. Field Maloney is the son of Terry and Judith Maloney who arrived in Franklin County from California back in…