“Yay! We get to eat breakfast outside!” chirps Kid 2, and he flits to the back door. His verbalized desire is music to my ears. In…
When I step into my Tucson backyard and an aromatic concoction of thick moisture, sun-warmed wood, and breezy coolness greets my nose, another place co-exists…
The sunflowers are starting. My son and husband alerted me to the single bloom in our backyard in early May, just as I was steeling myself…
“It’s lupine time! Go lupines, go lupines, go, go, go lupines!” spontaneously chanted my 5-year-old on our walk to his brother’s school mid-March. He does…
Worms help me recycle, garden, teach, and pay attention. I like worms. Worms, though uncommon in desert soil, reside with minimal care in habitats called…
Fall is a time of transition. Over a season, hot turns to cold. The downpours of monsoon summer and the drizzles of winter sandwich multiple…
The palo verde tree that planted itself, helped shape our front yard and shade our house, and beautifully flowered each spring, has to come down. We…
The coyote was an especially good sign. I know, coyotes can be tricky. But this one was exactly where it should be. It was we…
“Did this stick come from a TREE?” asked my 4-year-old. He accepted my affirmation thoughtfully, then inched along the trail again with an 18” pine…
“I need to keep digging to find that leak,” I updated my school gardening colleague. “There’s a leak?” he asked, surprised. I remembered he’d been…