In July everybody you telephone is somewhere else - either on the beach or on vacation, and half the time you're somewhere else too.

I love planting bulbs. It is making promises with tomorrow, believing in next year and the future.

October arrives in a swirl of fragrant blue leaf smoke, the sweetness of slightly frosted MacIntosh apples, and little hard acorns falling. We are in the midst of cool crisp days, purple mists, and Nature recklessly tossing her whole palette of dazzling tones through fields and woodlands.

In July everybody you telephone is somewhere else - either on the beach or on vacation, and half the time you're somewhere else too.

November is chill, frosted mornings with a silver sun rising behind the trees, red cardinals at the feeders, and squirrels running scallops along the tops of the gray stone walls.

Some days confidence shrinks to the size of a pea, and the backbone feels like a feather. We want to be somewhere else, and don't know where - want to be someone else and don't know who.

July is hollyhocks and hammocks, fireworks and vacations, hot and steamy weather, cool and refreshing swims, beach picnics, and vegetables all out of the garden - first sweet corn on the cob dripping with butter, first tomatoes dead ripe and sunwarm, string beans, squash, crisp cucumbers. July can also be hard and shiny, brassy and sharp. Some days are like copper pennies in the sunlight.