Fashionable Truth

Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms

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Wreaths and the News

Lisa has been twisting some of our large supply of grapevine into wreaths during breaks in our yard work. These will join the wreaths she made some time ago from honeysuckle vines, one of which has graced our front door since we arrived in Clarksburg. So far I haven’t joined in on this project, even [...]

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Conservation

Take an interest in conservation all over the United States. You may think that soil erosion, floods, or forest fires thousands of miles away have little effect on you. But they affect you just as surely as if they happened in your community. The need for conservation of natural resources is a serious problem facing [...]

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The Moon Flower, Again

A storm was predicted for last night, so we forced ourselves to complete several yard tasks yesterday that would be best done before the rain came. We altered a contour in the front yard to help direct water away from the house and down into the grass below, and removed still more English ivy from [...]

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Skare’s Woods

Bicycle excursions, usually to the west of town on Flagg Road, were a major entertainment in the summer among the little gang I ran with. Some number of us would suddenly decide to flee town. We would start at the little store at 10th Avenue, which U.S. 51 bent sharply to avoid, to purchase a [...]

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English Ivy

English ivy (Hedera helix) loves an old garden. It would like a whole garden to itself. You will find it on the ground in shade, climbing up walls and trees, and wound deep into hedges. Most of the work required by ivy in an old garden is removal, to put it within useful limits. In [...]

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Weeds or Wild Flowers

According to Saint-Exupéry, the Little Prince’s little planet was constantly in danger of being overwhelmed by baobabs. I mention this only because we spent another morning pulling English ivy out of another part of our yard, and I have developed considerable sympathy for the Prince’s plight. I know that there are those who love English [...]

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Mechanical Prayer

According to [Luis] Campos, [Charles R.] Crane in his youth deplored religious traditions. His earliest positive reaction to any religious object appears to have occurred when he saw Tibetan prayer wheels: the young businessman was greatly impressed by the idea, as Campos puts it, of “a machine that could do your praying for you.” – [...]

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Yesterday’s Bird

Pileated woodpeckers are not rare, but I have seen them only three times. Once something over 20 years ago, as we drove along the Natchez Trace, a pileated woodpecker appeared ahead of us, flying slowly across the road and into the woods in the park. Once, last summer, in a park in Wisconsin, we heard [...]

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Degrees of Paradise

Assan, son of Ali, was taking a bath, and a slave happened to spill a vessel of boiling water on his body. Assan gave him money and said, there is one degree of paradise for those who do not get angry, one for those who forgive, and one for those who reward involuntary offenses. – [...]

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