So, I ask you, why was I out this morning in my ratty tatty shorts, an OU Professional Writing t-shirt, and my Nikon D40X slung around my neck? I'm sure that I looked pretty funny awful to the Edmond Electric guys as they topped the foggy hill in their work truck and found me taking photos of roadside weeds wildflowers. At least they smiled and waved (albeit with quizzical expressions.) I guess I have no shame, but while the images from last night's Harley ride with HH were still fresh in my middle aged mind, I was compelled to put them in a more permanent form. Quintessentially rural Oklahoma. Yesterday, just before dusk, we headed out on the Harley to our favorite backroads destination, Pops. How do I describe Pops? It's a post modern building where you can have a hamburger from beef produced by No Name Ranch, or grab...

Rosa 'Golden Slippers' A couple of weeks ago, I heard the term "Second Spring" on one of my favorite gardening shows, A Gardener's Diary, and it stayed with me. The gardener was referring to how North Carolina suffers through the long summer and then re-emerges into a second spring in September and October. Many years, I think Oklahoma does the same. Once the fall rains begin, the garden perks up and spends her remaining days covered in jewels like one of Jane Austen's rich matrons. This morning, camera in hand, I walked my garden. It's looking quite grand considering fall is creeping up on it a little more everyday.  With a cold front barreling in from the north, and Gustav's remnants pushing from the south, half the state saw rain last night and this morning.  So far, we have little rain, but this morning's low was 65 degrees.  Our projected...

In spring, I rip you out of the ground, but your roots, they hide like Paris sewage rats only to emerge when the earth is hard for pulling. You resemble a boyfriend I once had, handsome in his big dance finery tentacled roots later on that long night. Like him, you bloom for a time Autumn's lilac luster. Charmed, I let you stay another day.

One of gardening's great blessings is the peace it affords the gardener. When problems weigh upon me like an anvil, I open the French doors and walk outside. My shoes step onto the path with a satisfying crunch, and after a few moments of wandering here and there; deadheading a salvia or a rose with a snap; spreading spent Zinnia seeds; or pulling a weed, my worries dissipate. My mind settles, and there is a stillness to my thoughts. It is this same stillness which frees writers to write, and painters to paint. Gardeners can visualize the next pathway, planting bed or where a particular plant should go. All of us, in our own fashion, are artists. We are each painting the canvasses of our lives. We, and our children, need a time of peace and quiet for our minds to quit spinning. It is only in the stillness that...