The first of the blossoms on the gardenia bush opened over night. Big, fragrant, beautiful white blossoms.
Another wildflower observation in the woods around our house. This is rattlesnakeweed (Hieracium venosum).
Another photo from my walk in the woods. This is heart-leaf ginger (Asarum virginicum) and there’s a lot of it along the slope to the creek.
A few hours ago I was casually walking through our woods looking at flowers and ferns. Now I’m sitting with my son in the ever busy Duke emergency department waiting for his lip to be stitched. Trampoline jumping in the dark — don’t do it!
Rattlesnake fern in the woods on the slope down to the creek.
Big rains the last few days. A cluster of these striped wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) have bloomed in our woods along the gravel driveway.
The magnolia tree out back has many big blossoms this year.
Championship Sunday! I’ve got Tottenham-Norwich on the big TV and ManCity-AVL on my laptop. May put Liverpool on my phone. ⚽️
In his newsletter, food writer Michael Ruhlman mentioned that Ann Hood (his wife) has a new memoir out and will be in North Carolina tomorrow. So, I popped over to the local bookstore and picked up Fly Girl: A Memoir. I plan to hear here at the Greensboro Bound Festival. 📚
Out back clearing fallen branches and using chain saw to cut firewood. Very hot but feels good to clean the forest floor in preparation for our new house. Grabbed a gnarled stump and stirred bees. Stung only once on my arm but an hour later it still hurts!
How am I just now hearing John Prine’s Dear Abby?!
Leaves of a tulip tree along the gravel driveway as I walk back from the mailbox.
Getting ready to make strawberry mango jam. Also drinking a Blue Moon mango wheat beer and listening to U2.
Excited to see Robin Sloan has written a new novel. I enjoyed both Sourdough and Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.
Walked out to the clearing where we’re building a new house and saw the lunar eclipse, clouds drifting over just as the last of the glare faded and redness started. Wish it had stayed clear. But I have vivid memories of a blood moon over Idaho in my youth.
Wish you all could smell these berries we just picked at Waller Family Farm. Hot out there in the sun, but fun to be out with so many other families gathering fruit for jam, pies, and for me a muddled strawberry, ginger syrup, and vodka cocktail.
Only found that one turtle on my slow walk through our woods. Now the rain is back so I am on the porch reading Sea of Tranquility: A novel by Emily St. John Mandel 📚
Heavy rainstorm just passed over so I came out to the woods to look for turtles. In five minutes I found the first. 🐢
Sitting in the Durham Food Hall with a cortado, rereading Atul Gawande’s brilliant Being Mortal, I had to hold back the tears. Coming time for me to have conversations with my parents. Grateful for this book and it’s guidance.
Last Saturday I made a rock wall and flower garden at the top end of the new paved driveway. Underneath one rock I found this snake. At the time I thought it a black snake but when I looked at this photo I realized it was a ringneck snake.
