thistles, beauty and beast

Thistles get a bad rap in morals stories.  It's a bad intruder into the garden.  It hurts to pull them, but it's a joy to look when they blossom.  And their seeds, each outfitted in down, look like they dance away from the pod.  If you like honey you have to let your bees forage somewhere.  So, to spray to not to spray was the question for me today.  The photogenic ones here I left stand--for a while anyways.

a week away

Where are you when you're at the corner of Harvard and Princeton?  Well, the stone sign at the bottom tells you--zero miles from meetinghouse (mtg), at Mt. Gretna, a little intentional community in Lebanon County, Pa.  We rented a cottage for a week to relax and relax we did.  Any place with a "Hall of Philosophy" is okay by me, even if more secular successors of the 1910 builders mar it with gaudy patriotic flimflam tapestry.  We ate, too. (bottle photo by Stephanie Miller Lehman)

guarding the grid

After a week at Mt. Gretna enjoying surround-sound tree environment, I woke the next day to a chain saw trimming the white pine so it does not break the wires of the power grid.  I'm okay with that, as long as the tree remains.  Far right are tips of branches of the pin oak we planted 15 years ago or so.  The orange truck blocks the farmer's lane.