Help for My Green Thumb: Ladybugs!
Better than a bath inside
So a while back I decided we needed a garden in our back yard. The first year was very experimental – I even hired a gardener to help Amy and I understand the process. This year, I’m rocking!
I have two raised garden beds here and here that have exploded with greenery with an amazingly wet spring. I have lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and beets all reaching for the sky as they put down roots in the amazing Smartleaf compost.
New Yorkers Love Hanalei Stockard Vota
Making friends at Starbucks
I’m not sure when I realized that New Yorkers love my daughter, Hanalei. Maybe it was the cab drivers, always willing to wait while I buckled in her car seat. Maybe it was the waitress who made space for her stroller at the table. Or maybe it was when the cute college girls stopped everything and played with Hanalei at Starbucks.
Yeah, that was it. When I could get random women to put away their iPhones and boyfriends to babysit my daughter in a busy Starbucks, I knew she’d won the hearts and minds of the Big Apple.
Read MoreDog Taxi Tackles Rock Creek Ripples
Better than a bath inside
Dog Taxi loves herself some splashing water. And I am not talking about watching it from afar, or barking at it passively. No I mean she dives headlong into any breaking water to try and eat all the waves produced, by say, the ocean.
While we first noticed her craze at Dog Beach in Maryland, I’ve found that Dog Taxi will try the same water guzzling feat in Rock Creek:
Read MoreFrom Majesty to Mulch in Minutes
An ancient oak, reduced to kindling
I bemoan the loss of any tree, no matter its age or placement. I feel that Washington does not have enough trees, which cool the city, absorb its rains, and make this a wonderful place to live. Yet life is tough for the urban forest, what with all the dangers like vehicular tree slaughter.
So when I see an old oak or elm, which stands proud and tall amongst the built environment, I am heartened. Yet when they fall, be by nature or by man, I am so very sad. And when they are cut down by the chain saw, I am beside myself with heartbreak:
Read MoreProhibitive Ocean City Signage
Too many restrictions for me
Whenever I travel, I get a feel for a city from its public signs. Some places, like Barcelona or Paris, enjoy their signage, and make function bend to whimsical. In Ocean City, there was no joy in signage. It was all practical and very prohibitive.
Let’s look at what is not allowed, from just one sign on the Ocean City boardwalk which underlines its regulations with the bold Regulations Police Enforced…
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