Last spring, I wanted something trouble-free and found it in coneflower seed packets, buying into the midsummer promise of self-sowing sun lovers—now overrunning the garden with nature’s lavender turns. Seed heads bristle symmetry, measure upon measure, Fibonacci’s weathered tune luring goldfinches to August feasts.
Category: Garden
Mottled History: The Love Behind a Peeling Vintage Table
I wore down layers of old paint on the vintage table. Running my hands over the just-right smoothness, I saw stories in the splotched surface: black paint from the furniture’s earliest days—maybe when my grandmother sipped morning coffee and gazed on her flowers; green when my mother went for a spring look; and sunny yellow in the hopeful days of my marriage.
You Can’t Take the Country Boy out of the Man
Was I lucky to have a dad obsessed with transplanting north Georgia mountain tradition to Alabama soil? I didn’t think so, especially on Saturday afternoons. While the neighbors’ kids played kickball on the cul-de-sac, our family tended the crops on the utility easement. There was nothing sentimental about growing squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, corn, and beans, beans, beans—until now.