Category: Field Notes

  • Field Notes: Nuccio’s Nurseries

    In March of this year I was able to offer some assistance to my younger son as he took on landscaping his home in SoCal. He had done the research, drawn up a design, soaked up information from the locals, and was ready to clear out the old, revive the planting beds, and welcome the…

  • Field Notes: Transplanting season

    The meaning of the word is clear. There’s a plant. It’s been planted. Then it needs to move to another location. It’s being “transplanted.” Simple. However, in practice, there’s another word that is more descriptive of the process: “Uprooted.” To be fair, I don’t take this lightly. I know, from practical experience, that the likelihood…

  • Now What?

    About a year ago I started work on another novel. As that work gained traction this blog was one of the things I simply set aside. We still made visits to both coasts to visit grandkids (and their parents), I still maintained and expanded landscaping operations, I served our little church as Deacon, and I…

  • Signs and Wondering

    We just completed the fall 2022 edition of our Bi-annual Bi-coastal Grandkids Tour. Typically, we drive to the East Coast and fly to the West Coast. This time, we decided to drive to California, something we’ve done before and which, for a variety of reasons, seemed to make sense this time. Technically, I can claim…

  • Gardening chose me

    Before you know what’s happening, you’ve been drawn through the looking glass, hit 88mph in the DeLorean, swallowed the red pill, and entered another dimension. When you go to your local big box home store you unconsciously park near the Garden Center even if you’re only buying drywall screws. Especially if you’re only buying drywall screws.  You have…

  • Fifty shades of shade

    There was a curious, odd-shaped corner of the yard I studied all winter that begged to be rescued from the banality of growing grass. It longed to be free, the kind of free that produces perennials and flowering shrubs. I had some ideas including the perfect color palette. Finally, it was spring. The forsythia did…

  • Is it raining in Winamac?

    Three summers ago, we had precious little rain from late June until well into the fall. Grousing with neighbors in August on the impact to the lake level and on our ability to enjoy the lake (while waiting for a couple racks of ribs to smoke), a wise man who is a retired farmer (redundant,…

  • Outside my front door

    Outside my front door is a small town in a Midwestern county where about ninety-eight percent of the land is used for farming. Well, not right outside my door. Across the road is a plowed field that was in corn last year and will be in soy beans this year. The small town is about…