Hiding...

28 August 2025: Someone ran out the front door today and then tried to hide. Or perhaps she just appreciates the new views, too.

Late August blooms...

27 August 2025: It's been dry here again and I am having to water the front bushes, which are still young and vulnerable. When I got home this evening and started watering, I found myself so pleased again with how well this flower bed has turned out. The annuals are thriving. They started out as tiny plants in cell packs and look at them now! The bushes are doing well, too. I am obsessed with the butterfly bushes. I can't say enough about how much this long-delayed landscaping change pleases me.

A summer stunner...

19 July 2025: The zinnias that I planted this year--especially around the mailbox--are doing really well. The bloom below isn't perfect, but it is huge and really pleases me, imperfections and all. Grateful for this kind of beauty.

Jo and the tree...

13 April 2023: Came home this evening after a pretty good day on campus (got some good work done, gave a little speech at the Phi Kappa Phi induction) and opened the windows upstairs so Jo could look at the redbud tree. 

Reminded me of this photo of Wes from just over three years ago, in the early days of COVID, while we were finishing up the spring semester online.

Favorite campus tree...

28 March 2023: Favorite tree on campus is doing its thing again. Spring vibes helping me get through a busy day that also included a double-cat vet visit.

Looking up...

26 March 2023: Snapped this while passing under the trees by University Heights. No prettier time of year. And hoping, praying, hoping, praying that this post's title fits a double-meaning I am willing into existence.  

Honeysuckles...

31 May 2022: The moment I arrived on campus this morning, I got approached--in the parking lot--about being on a search committee. About an hour later, as I tried to get some work done on my Wilson entry, I got an email asking me to take on another project. So I did what I do when I feel stressed and overwhelmed: I took my walk. Stopped for a moment to smell the honeysuckles along the way. Not a bad way to reset my mind and to honor Walt's birthday. 

Yard work...

28 May 2022: Finished the "spring into summer" weeding, mulching, and planting today and then mowed the lawn. So a lot of yard work today, some of it less than fun that other parts. But it wasn't so bad and the results look great. Entertained by three episodes of The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, too, my "intense yardwork" podcast of choice. 

Still want to get some more work done today, but enjoying a bit of vegging out right now.

Lilac crimes...

13 May 2022: Finally giving into an impulse I've had every spring, I finally snapped off some sprigs of lilac from a bush on my favorite spot on campus. I told myself that the blossoms only have a few days of peak left in them and there are so many that the bush wouldn't miss a few. Just a couple of sprigs made my whole office smell lovely. 

So...I did more crimes and brought some to Hannah for her office 

...and snapped off a few more to bring home. 

Whitman would approve.

The batch I later brought home, sitting in my office window.

Pink sidewalks

2 May 2022: That time of year when you come upon the bittersweet and fleeting beauty of pink sidewalks, themselves the echoes of another bittersweet and fleeting time. 

"The Spring Has Many Silences"

16 April 2022: 

"The spring has many silences:
Buds are mysteriously unbound
With a discreet significance,
And buds say nothing.

There are things that even the wind will not betray.
Earth puts her finger to her lips
And muffles there her quiet, quick activity…."

Full poem by Laura Riding Jackson here. 

Both the dogwood out front and the redbud out back have flowered in just the last day or so. Sometimes I find myself just caught up in staring at them. The miracles of spring...

Spring planting...

6 May 2021: Took a trip to Sunny Meadows Nursery and got my plants for the season. I will plant them over the next few days, but got a start today on the porch flowers. (A few are actually annuals from last season that I took inside and made it through the winter.)

Makes me happy...

Blooming out front...

9 April 2020: Little dogwood, doing its thing out front.

Also an anniversary of a kind of big day, one of the best of my life. The 24 hours that started when I heard my name? Magical.

One year ago. So much has changed, but I am still so unbelievably grateful for that day, those 24 hours, the lovely happiness of that spring and early summer, and what it has meant since then. The memories make me smile. 

Almost here...

18 March 2019: Something that delighted me this morning: the realization that while I was gone last week, the daffodils on campus emerged. Come on, spring!

Petals on a wet mower...

11 September 2018: While rushing to mow the still-wet lawn between days of rain, I did get a kick out of this strange beauty: crape myrtle petals sticking to the bright green mower. Not quite Ezra Pound's "petals on a wet black bough," but still a welcome sight.

One last butterfly

10 July 2016: One of my favorite things about the house we rented in Durham was the butterfly bushes all over which did their job better than any butterfly bushes I've ever seen. Right before my friends and I got in our cars and headed our separate ways, I snapped this last picture.

Lilacs...

11 May 2016: Still rainy here. Still. But while walking to a meeting this evening, I took a short-cut through my favorite spot on campus, the garden behind Knutti. And I walked by this lovely lilac bush. It always makes me happy when it blooms.

Rainy day planting

9 May 2016: It is still raining every freakin' day here (Sunday was the only exception), but I finally got into some spring flower planting on Monday. It was extra muddy and I didn't make a ton of progress, but it still felt good to get started.

Flowers from home

21 April 2016: Even with the cold I am fighting, I can smell these lovely flowers from across the room. My parents sent them to me to congratulate me on an award I won. (More about that later, maybe.)

Little blue flowers...

19 April 2016: I just love these little blue flowers that line the path at the C&O Canal this time of year. They just make me smile.