- It’s Sunday.

And this is rest and spirituality enough for me.

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- Harvest

Rich, my neighbor — husband of Julie, father of Georgie, and looker-alike of this guy — walked by and asked me if the sunflowers were ready to be harvested for seed.
Yes.

However… “I decided not to harvest them,” I replied to Rich, “and that I’d leave them for the wildlife.” I told him about a Downy [...]

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- Mudroom thoughts

I am painting the mudroom in our house. It has seemed to me, as I’ve been sanding and priming and painting, that this is about as prudent as detailing the family minivan or polishing a car’s hubcaps. (Not very.)

Still, I will finish it, and it will be good.
The experience — while longer than I budgeted [...]

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- Summer’s punch list

Often, I think seriously about changing this blog’s tag line to this: “What goes into planting, fixing, and writing.” I rarely use my skills in handwork to do much else than repair or fix stuff up. This month, for example, I’m painting the mudroom, tinkering with the garage door, and changing the latch set on [...]

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- Sunflower folly

This is what hope looks like.

During a spring semester clouded by the recession and my own economic downturn, I forced myself to take on tasks that were both optimistic and doable. I tended to my students and their work; I cultivated ties to colleagues and friends; I hoed the already neat rows of my resume; [...]

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- Don’t you wish your girlfriend were hot like me?

Work begins on the sunflower folly. Tutorial to come.
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Tiller by Honda (the Mantis was not available). Picture by Jimmy. Audience by George and Grace. Blog post title by the Pussycat Dolls.

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- Equipment

Here’s what I want (to rent) for Mother’s Day, a Mantis Tiller.

It’ll help me break ground, without breaking my back (or someone else’s), for one of my summer gardening projects, a sunflower folly.
—–
Mantis Tiller image from dgp’s 2008 photostream on Flickr.

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- Saturday

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- Free advice for the would-be freelancer

A year ago, my friend and fellow teacher, Lauren, wrote and asked me for advice on establishing herself as a freelance editor. She recalled that I had worked for a while as a freelance… something. Indeed, from 1994 to 2003 I worked independently as a writer and researcher for nonprofit organizations.
Lauren liked my advice, and [...]

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- Proust, you can have your madeleine.

Our friends were away on vacation, and Lydia was in charge of the cat and fish. She promised to daily feed and water the cat and clean its litter and occasionally to drop a few beads of food into the fish bowl.
One night I helped, and on another night — the last night of cat [...]

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