Garden Pots Quotes

The heat of the summer transformed the green grass into long brown straw, only the weeds were green. Claire didn't mind, the weeds had pretty flowers. Unlike Tony's flowers, which had been sentenced to his yard, gardens, or clay pots, these flowers grew free wherever they wanted. Furthermore, weeds were survivors. When all else died, the weeds remained. Yes, Claire liked weeds.

Only one bear eats from this honey pot, Tatia

In fact, the only things in the flat Crowley devoted any personal attention to were the houseplants. They were huge, and green, and glorious, with shiny, healthy, lustrous leaves. This was because, once a week, Crowley went around the flat with a green plastic plant mister spraying the leaves, and talking to the plants.... Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did. What he did was put the fear of God into them. More precisely, the fear of Crowley. In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt, or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the plants. "Say goodbye to your friend," he'd say to them. "He just couldn't cut it..." Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat. The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified.

It is not hard to start a small garden, all you need is a sapling, a planting pot, a small bag of soil, and regular watering. There you go, you helped cooling the earth down by one plant.

Agatha had that old feeling of being on the outside of life looking in.

Eventually the Woodsman spoke. ‘We all have our routines,’ he said softly. ‘But they must have a purpose and provide an outcome that we can see and take some comfort from, or else they have no use at all. Without that, they are like the endless pacings of a caged animal. If they are not madness itself, then they are a prelude to it.’ The Woodsman stood and showed David his axe. ‘See here,’ he said, pointing with his finger at the blade. Every morning, I make certain that me axe is clean and keen. I look to my house and check that its windows and doors remain secure. I tend to my land, disposing of weeds and ensuring that the soil is watered. I walk through the forest, clearing those paths that need to be kept open. Where trees have been damaged, I do my best to repair what has been harmed. these are my routines and I enjoy doing them well.’ He laid a hand gently on David’s shoulder, and David saw understanding in his face. ‘Rules and routines are good, but they must give you satisfaction. Can you truly say you gain that from touching and counting?’ David shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I get scared when I don’t do them. I’m afraid of what might happen.’ ‘Then find routines that allow you to feel secure when they are done. You told me that you have a new brother: look to him each morning. Look to your father, and your stepmother. Tend to the flowers in the garden, or in the pots upon the window sill. Seek others who are weaker than you are, and try to give them comfort where you can. Let these be your routines, and the rules that govern your life.

Why couldn't I accept what was happening without trying to explain it, without bringing up ideas of order and disorder, of freedom, as one sets out geranium pots in a courtyard on the Calle Cochabamba? Maybe on had to fall into the depths of stupidity in order to make the key fit the lock to the latrine or to the Garden of Olives.

Connection with gardens, even small ones, even potted plants, can become windows to the inner life. The simple act of stopping and looking at the beauty around us can be prayer.

The roses started him thinking, how the oddity of them was beautiful and how that oddity was contrived to give them value. “It just struck me – clear and complete all at once – no long figuring about it.” He realized that children could be designed. “And I thought to myself, now that would a rose garden worthy of a man’s interest.” We children would smile and hug him and he would grin around at us and send the twins for a pot of cocoa from the drink wagon and me for a bag of popcorn because the red-haired girls would just throw it out when they finished closing the concession anyway. And we would all be cozy in the warm booth of the van, eating popcorn and drinking cocoa and feeling like Papa’s roses.

There may indeed be more to life than a pot of cheese, a garden, a few friends; but these things, at least, may be a pretty good start.

When the water boiled, Michiko poured it into the pot of green leaves and we both waited in the thick silence. I felt strangely calmed by this simple ritual I had seen my mother do many hundred times before. It was all that seemed to make sense in this place and I held on to it as if I were drowning.

just as when we see a pig in a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable law of the Inscrutable it will some day be larger than an elephant,—just as we know, when we see weeds and dandelions growing more and more thickly in a garden, that they must, in spite of all our efforts, grow taller than the chimney-pots and swallow the house from sight, so we know and reverently acknowledge, that when any power in human politics has shown for any period of time any considerable activity, it will go on until it reaches to the sky.

...it was my father who had taught me to love books for themselves, the smell of the vellum and paper, the rare authority of the pages. "Here, do you see this marvelous book, the skins of 182 sheep," he once pronounced as he slapped his hand down on the stamped leather cover boards. "The book is a flock, a jewel, a cemetery, a lantern, a garden, a piss pot; pigments ground of precious minerals, charred bone, lamp soot, rare plants and insects. Pigments formed at the corrosion of copper plates suspended above urine.

Fanfare for the Makers A cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what? To the small fire that never leaves the sky. To the great fire that boils the daily pot. To all the things we are not remembered by, Which we remember and bless. To all the things That will not notice when we die, Yet lend the passing moment words and wings. So fanfare for the Makers: who compose A book of words or deeds who runs may write As many who do run, as a family grows At times like sunflowers turning towards the light. As sometimes in the blackout and the raids One joke composed an island in the night. As sometimes one man’s kindness pervades A room or house or village, as sometimes Merely to tighten screws or sharpen blades Can catch a meaning, as to hear the chimes At midnight means to share them, as one man In old age plants an avenue of limes And before they bloom can smell them, before they span The road can walk beneath the perfected arch, The merest greenprint when the lives began Of those who walk there with him, as in default Of coffee men grind acorns, as in despite Of all assaults conscripts counter assault, As mothers sit up late night after night Moulding a life, as miners day by day Descend blind shafts, as a boy may flaunt his kite In an empty nonchalant sky, as anglers play Their fish, as workers work and can take pride In spending sweat before they draw their pay. As horsemen fashion horses while they ride, As climbers climb a peak because it is there, As life can be confirmed even in suicide: To make is such. Let us make. And set the weather fair. Louis Macneice

The Coppersmith is a bird who makes a noise exactly like the beating of a little hammer on a copper pot; and the reason he is always making it is because he is the town crier to every Indian garden, and tells all the news to everybody who cares to listen.

The tea kettle whistled, and Melissa poured it over the tea at the bottom of the glass pot. While it steeped, Melissa opened the back door to her favorite sight in her corner of the world—her herb and butterfly garden. Blue and purple lupine, shocking pink four o’clocks, orange poppies, and sunny-yellow damiana greeted her, still shaded by the fig tree on the east side of the garden.

...the reality of late summer and early autumn when Adelaide, more than any place on earth, and as simply as pouring tea from a pot, pours fourth from a lavish cornucopia into gardens and parks and markets and arcade stalls a cascade of carnations and grapes and melons, guavas and Michaelmas daisies and tomatoes, zinnias and belladonna lilies and tuberoses, lavender and quinces and cumquats and pomegranates, roses and roses and roses.

After Nicholas hung up the phone, he watched his mother carry buckets and garden tools across the couch grass toward a bed that would, come spring, be brightly ablaze as tropical coral with colorful arctotis, impatiens, and petunias. Katherine dug with hard chopping strokes, pulling out wandering jew and oxalis, tossing the uprooted weeds into a black pot beside her. The garden will be beautiful, he thought. But how do the weeds feel about it? Sacrifices must be made.

Kate tracked Barnes down to the potting shed, where he was planting up some seedlings into clay pots. He looked up as Kate entered and gave her a slow half smile once he knew she was unaccompanied. "So you can't leave me alone, Miss? Must be my devastating charm. I'm not so sure it's safe for you to be alone in the potting shed with me though.

Calypso took pity on him in some ways. She sent her invisible servants to leave bowls of stew and goblets of apple cider at the edge of the garden. She even sent him a few new sets of clothes—simple, undyed cotton pants and shirts that she must have made on her loom. They fit him so well, Leo wondered how she’d gotten his measurements. Maybe she just used her generic pattern for SCRAWNY MALE. Anyway, he was glad to have new threads, since his old ones were pretty smelly and burned up. Usually Leo could keep his clothes from burning when he caught fire, but it took concentration. Sometimes back at camp, if he wasn’t thinking about it, he’d be working on some metal project at the hot forge, look down, and realize his clothes had burned away, except for his magic tool belt and a smoking pair of underwear. Kind of embarrassing. Despite the gifts, Calypso obviously didn’t want to see him. One time he poked his head inside the cave and she freaked out, yelling and throwing pots at his head. Yeah, she was definitely on Team Leo. He ended up pitching a more permanent camp near the footpath, where the beach met the hills. That way he was close enough to pick up his meals, but Calypso didn’t have to see him and go into a pot-throwing rage.

How do you handle it when your anger brims over the edge of the pot? You use the shortened version of the Serenity Prayer, which is “Fuck it.” Like Voltaire’s Candide tending his own garden or the British infantry going up the Khyber Pass one bloody foot at a time, you do your job, and you grin and walk through the cannon smoke, and you just keep saying fuck it. You also have faith in your own convictions and never let the naysayers and those who are masters at inculcating self-doubt hold sway in your life. “Fuck it” is not profanity. “Fuck it” is a sonnet.

As the serpentine expanse of glass drew open, the city seemed to wrap around them: rooftop gardens with stunted trees in pots, water towers like chunky flying saucers, the spires of distant skyscrapers.

After a week in front of the screen, the opportunity to work with my hands—with all my senses, in fact—is always a welcome change of pace, whether in the kitchen or in the garden. There’s something about such work that seems to alter the experience of time, helps me to reoccupy the present tense. I don’t want you to get the idea it’s made a Buddhist of me, but in the kitchen, maybe a little bit. When stirring the pot, just stir the pot.

All April and May, the stock-pots exuded the fragrance of the crushed bones and marrow of cattle and fowl, seasoned with the crispate herbs and vegetables from her own luxuriant garden. The smells coalesced into a dark perfume that felt like a layer of silk on the tongue. My nose grew kingly at the approach of my home. There would be the redolent brown stocks the color of tanned leather, the light and chipper white stocks, and the fish stocks brimming with the poached heads of trout smelling like an edible serving of marsh.

This had once been a garden. Beautiful glazed pots stood against the walls but now were cracked, crumbling, and contained only dead bushes and weeds. A broken wooden bench had been overturned and lay forlornly on its side. Perhaps even gardens were considered sinful.

William Morris championed the movement for Arts and Crafts. He believed that when we build a house with our hands, make furniture in our workshops, make pots and paintings in our studios, plant fruits and flowers in our gardens, we transform ourselves into alchemists, turning ordinary into extraordinary.

Yes, I had dreamed of becoming a botanist, my entire life, really. I'd thought a great deal about the various species of maple and rhododendron while braiding challah, and I'd successfully planted a wisteria vine in a large pot and trained it over the awning of the bakery. And at night, after we closed shop, I volunteered at the New York Botanical Garden. Sweeping up cuttings and fallen leaves hardly seemed like work when it provided the opportunity to gaze into the eye of a Phoenix White peony or a Lady Hillingdon rose, with petals the color of apricot preserves. Yes, horticulture, not pastries, was my passion.

Whether a plot in a yard or pots in a window, every politically engaged person should have a garden. By politically engaged, I mean everyone with a vested interest in the direction the people on this planet take in relationship to others. We should all take some time to plant life in the soil. Even when such planting isn't easy.

Whether a plot in a yard or pots in a window, every politically engaged person should have a garden. By politically engaged, I mean everyone with a vested interest in the direction the people on this planet take in relationship to others. We should all take some time to plant life in the soil. Even when such planting isn't easy.

Visualize many pots filled with water, standing in a garden. Then imagine the moon shining down from above. In every pot, the moon's reflection will appear separate. In fact, however, all the pots reflect the same moon. "That is how God is in the souls of men. Though reflected in every human being, He is forever untainted by human consciousness. Even if you broke all the pots, the moon's light would remain the same. "Wise is he who, beholding the light of life shining in his little `pot' of human consciousness, looks up to its origins in the `moon' above-in God. But foolish, he who becomes engrossed in the moon in its reflection. When the pot breaks, what will he have left?

I do not love to garden. I love other people’s gardens, and I like cut flowers. I have Astroturf and a whole lot of high-quality plastic flowers stuck in the dirt of our front yard. These are quite a lovely sight and bring to mind many e. e. cummings poems. People used to give me potted plants and trees, and what happened to them is really too horrible to go into here.

Naomi makes a face and points to the potted flowers near the front door of her houseboat. "Just look at that," she says, as if something upsetting has happened. She reaches into one of the pots and pulls out a green vine, a few feet long, with several bell-shaped flowers. "There," she says with a vindicated look in her eye, as if this vine has wronged her in some way. "What is it?" I ask. She flashes a patronizing smile. "An invasive weed," she says, tossing the vine into the lake. I watch the little white flowers flutter in the water. I want to kneel down and rescue them from drowning. "Morning glory," Naomi continues, shaking her head. "It'll take over if you let it." I watch as the vine drifts away on the lake. The little flowers bob up and down as if gasping for air. I consider that the vine might find its way to shore and wash up on a patch of soil, where it will start a new existence, maybe sink its roots and thrive. Maybe Naomi has set it free. I think of the bluebells that grew in my mother's garden when I was a child. Weeds, really. But I'd pick them by the handful, and when bunched together they looked stunning.

The Cocoa-Nut Tree at Covent Garden? Why it's the finest confectioner in the capital and sells bonbons, macaroons, candied fruits, and ices,' I said in my proper reading voice. I had long studied their advertisement in Mr Pars' London Gazette after he'd left it by the kitchen fire. It was a beautiful advertisement, with little drawings of sugar cones, ice pots, and tiny men attending wondrous stoves.

Back home, thinking she knew how to fix grits, she threw them into boiling water like Ma had done, but they lumped up all together in one big ball that burned on the bottom and stayed raw in the middle. So rubbery she could only eat a few bites, so she searched the garden again and found a few more turnip greens between the goldenrod. Then boiled them up and ate them all, slurping down the pot likker.

The top four priorities would be food, fuel, clothing and shelter. Dig the garden, feed the pig, fetch water from the brook, gather wood from the forest, wash some potatoes, light a fire (no matches), cook lunch, repair the roof, fetch fresh bracken for clean bedding, whittle a needle, spin some thread, sew leather for shoes, wash in the stream, fashion a pot out of clay, catch and cook a chicken for dinner.

If a plant is wild, living in a forest, it is not reliant on you at all. Dig that plant up, and resettle it in your garden, then it is slightly reliant on you. But if you put that plant in a pot, and bring it into your house, then it is totally reliant on you. It can no longer be called wild, and no longer survive, or breed, without your help. And that is what your leaders are constantly trying to do to you.

There is comfort in such accumulations, layers of lives, of years. Gardening tools, wheelbarrow, arousal cans, old bicycles, recycling bins, battered trash cans, cardboard boxes stacked in a corner, cracked clay pots, exiled kitchenware & furniture, antique television, dog food bowls. You could do an inventory of a household by all that has been worn out or excluded, exiled from it. You could do an inventory of a life.

So much of Valetto is negative space, I thought as I walked along, the conjuring of imaginary forms, but then you turn a corner and see the curled Cs of a dozen sleeping cats in the piazza, the clay-potted geraniums on the edges of stone stairs, the winter rooftop gardens, or the old man in a leather apron walking to the church every hour to ring the bronze bells, and you feel certain that this town of ten will be here forever.

Cardan comes over, stepping on my star chart, kicking over the ink-pot with his silver-tipped boots, sending the blood spilling across the paper, blotting out my marks. 'Come with me,' he says imperiously. 'I knew you liked her,' says Locke. 'That's why I had to have her first. Do you remember the party in my maze garden? How I kissed her while you watched?' 'I recall that your hands were on her, but her eyes were on me,' Cardan returns. 'That's not true!' I insist, but I remember Cardan on a blanket with a daffodil-haired faerie girl. She pressed her lips to the edge of his boot, and another girl kissed his throat. His gaze had turned to me when one of them began kissing his mouth. His eyes were coal-bright, wet as tar. The memory comes with the slide of Locke's palm over my back, heat in my cheeks, and the feeling my skin was too tight, that everything was too much.

Marjan Aminpour slowly sipped at her hot tea and studied the changing horizon. Mornings in Ireland were so different from those of her Persian childhood, she thought, not for the first time. Were she still in the land of her birth, Marjan mused, daybreak would be marked by the crisp sounds of a 'sofreh', the embroidered cloth upon which all meals were enjoyed, flapping over a richly carpeted floor. Once spread, the 'sofreh' would be covered by jars of homemade preserves- rose petal, quince-lime, and sour cherry- as well as pots of orange blossom honey and creamy butter. The jams and honey would sit alongside freshly baked rounds of 'sangak' bread, golden and redolent with crunchy sesame seeds. Piled and teetering like a tower, the 'sangak' was a perfect accompaniment to the platters of garden mint, sweet basil, and feta cheese placed on the 'sofreh', bought fresh from the local bazaar.

Is there something uniquely dangerous about beans? I posed this question to plant scientist Ann Filmer, recently retired from the University of California, Davis. In her reply, she included a link for a website she had put together on poisonous garden plants. I was taken aback to note that nine of the 112 plants in Category 1 (Major Toxicity: “may cause serious illness or death”) were currently, or had recently been, growing in our yard: oleander, lantana, night-blooming jasmine, lobelia, rhododendron, azalea, toyon, pittosporum, and hellebore. Another, the houseplant croton, was growing in an orange ceramic pot in my office. In other words, it’s not beans. It’s plants, period. If you can’t flee or maul or fire a gun, evolution may help you out with other, quieter ways to avoid being eaten. Over the millennia, natural selection favors eaters who turn up their proboscis at you, and eventually they all steer clear.

If he does it right and is lucky, in nine or 10 months he scoops the tiny half-inch seedlings out of the bottle and plants them in community pots. A year later he transplants them to individual three-inch pots and in another two years to 4 1/2-inch pots, and crosses his fingers. Then, five or six or seven years since the day he put pollen to stigma, he sees an orchid no one ever saw before. It is different from any orchid that has ever bloomed, including those in the Garden of Eden.

The small pergola that Michael had built was covered in loops of jasmine, and Lara's flower beds were blazing with color. Blowsy white peonies, dusky purple irises with golden stripes, pale orange poppies with sooty centers. The first tea roses of the year were budding. Elinas, pink petals tipped with crimson, and the ivory Jeanne Moreaus that smelled faintly of lemons. Lara wanted to pick one and put it on the breakfast tray, but Michael hated cut flowers. She went back inside and began to set the tray. Her mother's blue Venetian glass dish filled with raspberries. Orange juice in a white jug. A honey pot with a wooden dipper. Sunshine streamed in through the window, warming the terra-cotta tiles beneath her bare feet. She could not have cut flowers in the house so she had pictures of them instead. Two huge framed Georgia O'Keefe poppy prints. An apron with a pattern of climbing roses. A wooden clock that Phil had given her with a pendulum in the shape of a red rose.

She wandered around Sally's garden, sipping coffee, stopping to admire the grevillea and talk to the chickens. As the warmth of the sun unknotted the tension in her spine, Alice noticed a lush alley of potted tropical plants alongside the house: monstera, bird of paradise, agave, staghorns and ferns. Alice was filled with a sense of wonder; it was a garden within a garden, so meticulous and well-tended in contrast to the wild beauty surrounding it. The sumptuous blends of greens. The varying, glossy foliage.

Three days before the Garden Extravaganza, the Vanderbeekers walked to the garden to find the sidewalk in front of the gate filled with plants. There were two big pots of bright blue hydrangeas, four filled with peach-colored roses, a small tree with a scattering of green leaves, and twenty pots of lavender. Laney ran to the tree and hugged it. Hyacinth leaned over to smell the roses. Jessie and Oliver noticed ribbons attached to notes on some of the branches. As they peered at the cards, Orlando arrived carrying

Roasted Tomato Soup Serves 4-6 This soup is perfect for those cold winter nights when you want to relax with a comforting grilled cheese and tomato soup combo. The slow roasting of the tomatoes gives it tons of flavor. If you have a garden full of fresh tomatoes, feel free to use those instead of the canned variety. Stay away from fresh grocery store tomatoes in the winter, as they are usually flavorless and mealy and won’t give you the best results. This creamy soup also makes a luxurious starter for a dinner party or other occasion. 1 28 ounce can peeled whole tomatoes, drained 1/4 cup olive oil 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning 1/2 small red onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, rough chopped 1/4 cup chicken broth 1/2 cup ricotta cheese 1/2 cup heavy cream Add the tomatoes, olive oil, herbs, and broth to your slow cooker pot. Cover and cook on low for about 6 hours, until the vegetables are soft. Use either a blender or immersion blender to puree the soup and transfer back to slow cooker. Add the ricotta and heavy cream and turn the cooker to warm if you can. Serve warm.

Bird was watering the pots. She stood still for a moment and watched him. The spray of the water made rainbows in the low, afternoon light, and the leaves of the chard glowed emerald and ruby. And how could she distinguish him from her, or her from the garden, when it was all light, colors playing against one another, wrapped in scent, rich earth and citrus? Bird himself was merely a sphere of turquoise and gold, laced with darker streaks. Musk and sweat and sun-warmed skin. She inhaled, wondering what elixir she could brew from this moment of perfect beauty.

Beyond her, along the edge of the patio, a rainbow of color danced in the evening breeze. Olive's backyard efforts had gone well beyond the leafy herb garden. Arranged in sweet clusters, with a backdrop of desert sage and tall grasses, sat well-tended terracotta pots brimming with yellow snapdragons, deep-violet lobelia, and powder-blue pansies. Even in the dimming evening light, Julia noticed a couple of butterflies flitting near the bright arrangement of petals. It was such a charming sight, and her niece had been responsible for the entire thing. There was no doubt this girl had a serious green thumb.

I took a cautious step inside, marveling at the sight before me. A vast conservatory awaited, or what 'once' was a conservatory. Sunlight beamed through the enormous glass roof. I realized that its position at the center of the house precluded its visibility from below. In awe, my heart beating wildly, I lingered in an arbor covered with bright pink bougainvillea, with a trunk so thick, it was larger than my waist. Most of it had died off, but a single healthy vine remained, and it burst with magenta blossoms. I could smell citrus warming in the sunlight, and I immediately noticed the source: an old potted lemon tree in the far corner. 'This must have been Lady Anna's.' I walked along the leaf-strewn pathway to a table that had clearly once showcased dozens of orchids. Now it was an orchid graveyard. Only their brown, shriveled stems remained, but I could imagine how they'd looked in their prime. I smiled when I picked up a tag from one of the pots. 'Lady Fiona Bixby. She must have given them her own names.' Perhaps there hadn't been anything sinister going on in the orchard, after all. Lady Anna was clearly a creative spirit, and maybe that played out in her gardens and the names she gave to her flowers and trees.

My life in the kitchen began with my grandmother in the village of Champvert in the Tarn-et-Garonne department of southwestern France, the town so small you'd need a magnifying glass to find it on the map. I'd sit on a tall wooden stool, wide-eyed, watching Grand-mère Odette in her navy-blue dress and black ballerina flats, her apron adorned with les coquelicots (wild red poppies), mesmerized by the grace with which she danced around her kitchen, hypnotized by all the wonderful smells- the way the aromas were released from the herbs picked right from her garden as she chopped, becoming stronger as she set them in an olive oiled and buttered pan. She'd dip a spoon in a pot or slice up an onion in two seconds, making it look oh so easy, and for her it was. But my favorite part was when she'd let me taste whatever delight she was cooking up, sweet or savory. I'd close my eyes, lick my lips, and sigh with happiness. Sometimes Grand-mère Odette would blindfold me, and it wasn't long before I could pick out every ingredient by smell. All the other senses came to me, too- sight (glorious plating), taste (the delight of the unknown), touch (the way a cherry felt in my hand), and hearing (the way garlic sizzled in the pan).

I was too awestruck to speak. Vines of bright pink flowers danced over a wrought-iron arbor. I recognized them immediately as the very same variety, bougainvillea, that grew in Greenhouse No. 4 at the New York Botanical Garden. Just beyond, two potted trees stood at attention- a lemon, its shiny yellow globes glistening in the sunlight, and what looked like an orange, studded with the tiniest fruit I'd ever seen. "What is this?" I asked, fascinated. "A kumquat," she said. "Lady Anna used to pick them for the children." She reached out to pluck one of the tiny oranges from the tree. "Here, try for yourself." I held it in my hand, admiring its smooth, shiny skin. I sank my teeth into the flesh of the fruit. Its thin skin disintegrated in my mouth, releasing a burst of sweet and sour that made my eyes shoot open and a smile spread across my face. "Oh, my," I said. "I've never had anything like it." Mrs. Dilloway nodded. "You should try the clementines, then. They're Persian." I walked a few paces further, admiring the potted orchids- at least a hundred specimens, so exquisite they looked like Southern belles in hoop skirts. On the far wall were variegated ferns, bleeding hearts, and a lilac tree I could smell from the other end of the room.

To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as one can, this complex relationship. What can one do? Here is a list, probably not definitive: 1. Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life. 2. Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of “quality control”: You will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat. 3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence. 4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the reasons listed for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers. 5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and what do you pay for these additions? 6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening. 7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species. The

He criss-crossed the kitchen-garden beyond the asparagus beds: fruit trees and strawberry beds and bean poles and a chicken-wire enclosure where raspberry canes and gooseberry bushes and currant bushes lived sheltered from the attack of birds. Beside the gooseberry wire grew a row of rhubarb. Each clump was covered with the end of an old tub or pot drain-pipe with sacking over the top. Between the loose staves of one of the tubends was something white—a piece of paper. It was folded, and addressed in a childish hand—if one could call it an address: ‘To Oberon, King of Fairies.’ Tom certainly did not want to be mixed up with talk of fairies and that kind of thing; and he moved very quickly away from the rhubarb bed.

The Forgiveness Castle remains open all day and all night, and the best thing is that there are so many entrances, usually found where you'd never thing to look: behind potted plants, in crayon drawings, and on old birthday cards. I have it on good authority that one entrance is through a tree fort. Many of the Forgiveness Castle's entry points remain secret, which is why you hunt around, press the blue walls gently, and wait. Sometimes saying the most obvious words, 'I'm sorry', opens a hidden door right where there seemed not possibility." He looks away. "You're welcome to visit this castle to wait for a friend, to sit in one of its orange and yellow gardens, or to find your own reflection in the polished blue rock and whisper, 'Please.Come home.

A man on his deathbed left instructions For dividing up his goods among his three sons. He had devoted his entire spirit to those sons. They stood like cypress trees around him, Quiet and strong. He told the town judge, 'Whichever of my sons is laziest, Give him all the inheritance.' Then he died, and the judge turned to the three, 'Each of you must give some account of your laziness, so I can understand just how you are lazy.' Mystics are experts in laziness. They rely on it, Because they continuously see God working all around them. The harvest keeps coming in, yet they Never even did the plowing! 'Come on. Say something about the ways you are lazy.' Every spoken word is a covering for the inner self. A little curtain-flick no wider than a slice Of roast meat can reveal hundreds of exploding suns. Even if what is being said is trivial and wrong, The listener hears the source. One breeze comes From across a garden. Another from across the ash-heap. Think how different the voices of the fox And the lion, and what they tell you! Hearing someone is lifting the lid off the cooking pot. You learn what's for supper. Though some people Can know just by the smell, a sweet stew From a sour soup cooked with vinegar. A man taps a clay pot before he buys it To know by the sound if it has a crack. The eldest of the three brothers told the judge, 'I can know a man by his voice, and if he won't speak, I wait three days, and then I know him intuitively.' The second brother, 'I know him when he speaks, And if he won't talk, I strike up a conversation.' 'But what if he knows that trick?' asked the judge. Which reminds me of the mother who tells her child 'When you're walking through the graveyard at night and you see a boogeyman, run at it, and it will go away.' 'But what,' replies the child, 'if the boogeyman's Mother has told it to do the same thing? Boogeymen have mothers too.' The second brother had no answer. 'I sit in front of him in silence, And set up a ladder made of patience, And if in his presence a language from beyond joy And beyond grief begins to pour from my chest, I know that his soul is as deep and bright As the star Canopus rising over Yemen. And so when I start speaking a powerful right arm Of words sweeping down, I know him from what I say, And how I say it, because there's a window open Between us, mixing the night air of our beings.' The youngest was, obviously, The laziest. He won.

There's no such thing as witches. But there used to be. It used to be the air was so thick with magic you could taste it on your tongue like ash. Witches lurked in every tangled wood and waited at every midnight-crossroad with sharp-toothed smiles. They conversed with dragons on lonely mountaintops and rode rowan-wood brooms across full moons; they charmed the stars to dance beside them on the summer solstice and rode to battle with familiars at their heels. It used to be witches were wild as crows and fearless as foxes, because magic blazed bright and the night was theirs. But then came the plague and the purges. The dragons were slain and the witches were burned and the night belonged to men with torches and crosses. Witching isn’t all gone, of course. My grandmother, Mama Mags, says they can’t ever kill magic because it beats like a great red heartbeat on the other side of everything, that if you close your eyes you can feel it thrumming beneath the soles of your feet, thumpthumpthump. It’s just a lot better-behaved than it used to be. Most respectable folk can’t even light a candle with witching, these days, but us poor folk still dabble here and there. Witch-blood runs thick in the sewers, the saying goes. Back home every mama teaches her daughters a few little charms to keep the soup-pot from boiling over or make the peonies bloom out of season. Every daddy teaches his sons how to spell ax-handles against breaking and rooftops against leaking. Our daddy never taught us shit, except what a fox teaches chickens — how to run, how to tremble, how to outlive the bastard — and our mama died before she could teach us much of anything. But we had Mama Mags, our mother’s mother, and she didn’t fool around with soup-pots and flowers. The preacher back home says it was God’s will that purged the witches from the world. He says women are sinful by nature and that magic in their hands turns naturally to rot and ruin, like the first witch Eve who poisoned the Garden and doomed mankind, like her daughter’s daughters who poisoned the world with the plague. He says the purges purified the earth and shepherded us into the modern era of Gatling guns and steamboats, and the Indians and Africans ought to be thanking us on their knees for freeing them from their own savage magics. Mama Mags said that was horseshit, and that wickedness was like beauty: in the eye of the beholder. She said proper witching is just a conversation with that red heartbeat, which only ever takes three things: the will to listen to it, the words to speak with it, and the way to let it into the world. The will, the words, and the way. She taught us everything important comes in threes: little pigs, bill goats gruff, chances to guess unguessable names. Sisters. There wer ethree of us Eastwood sisters, me and Agnes and Bella, so maybe they'll tell our story like a witch-tale. Once upon a time there were three sisters. Mags would like that, I think — she always said nobody paid enough attention to witch-tales and whatnot, the stories grannies tell their babies, the secret rhymes children chant among themselves, the songs women sing as they work. Or maybe they won't tell our story at all, because it isn't finished yet. Maybe we're just the very beginning, and all the fuss and mess we made was nothing but the first strike of the flint, the first shower of sparks. There's still no such thing as witches. But there will be.

That's my little piece of heaven. Go ahead." Ciro followed Remo through the open door to a small enclosed garden. Terra-cotta pots positioned along the top of the stone wall spilled over with red geraniums and orange impatiens. An elm tree with a wide trunk and deep roots filled the center of the garden. Its green leaves and thick branches reached past the roof of Remo's building, creating a canopy over the garden. There was a small white marble birdbath, gray with soot, flanked by two deep wicker armchairs. Remo fished a cigarette out of his pocket, offering another to Ciro as both men took a seat. "This is where I come to think." "Va bene," Ciro said as he looked up into the tree. He remembered the thousands of trees that blanketed the Alps; here on Mulberry Street, one tree with peeling gray bark and holes in its leaves was cause for celebration.

he herself will serve them coffee in tiny, cracked cups of precious porcelain and little sugar cakes. The hobbledehoys sit with a spilling cup in one hand and a biscuit in the other, gaping at the beautiful Countess in her satin finery as she pours from a silver pot and chatters distractedly to put them at their fatal ease. A certain desolate stillness of her eyes indicates she is inconsolable. She would like to caress their lean, brown cheeks and stroke their ragged hair. When she takes them by the hand and leads them to her bedroom, they can scarcely believe their luck. Afterwards, her governess will tidy the remains into a neat pile and wrap it in its own discarded clothes. This mortal parcel she then discreetly buries in the garden. The blood on the Countess' cheeks will be mixed with tears; her keeper probes her fingernails for her with a little silver toothpick, to get rid of the fragments of skin and bone that have lodged there.

Are you chuckling yet? Because then along came you. A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair and ruddy skin that burns at the beach. A bundle of appetites. A full, boisterous guffaw; a man who tells knock know jokes. Hot dogs - not even East 86th Street bratwurst but mealy, greasy big guts that terrifying pink. Baseball. Gimme caps. Puns and blockbuster movies, raw tap water and six-packs. A fearless, trusting consumer who only reads labels to make sure there are plenty of additives. A fan of the open road with a passion for his pickup who thinks bicycles are for nerds. Fucks hard and talks dirty; a private though unapologetic taste for porn. Mysteries, thrillers, and science fiction; a subscription to National Geographic. Barbecues on the Fourth of July and intentions, in the fullness of time, to take up golf. Delights in crappy snack foods of ever description: Burgles. Curlies. Cheesies. Squigglies - you're laughing - but I don't eat them - anything that looks less like food than packing material and at least six degrees of separation from the farm. Bruce Springsteen, the early albums, cranked up high with the truck window down and your hair flying. Sings along, off-key - how is it possible that I should be endeared by such a tin ear?Beach Boys. Elvis - never lose your roots, did you, loved plain old rock and roll. Bombast. Though not impossibly stodgy; I remember, you took a shine to Pearl Jam, which was exactly when Kevin went off them...(sorry). It just had to be noisy; you hadn't any time for my Elgar, my Leo Kottke, though you made an exception for Aaron Copeland. You wiped your eyes brusquely at Tanglewood, as if to clear gnats, hoping I didn't notice that "Quiet City" made you cry. And ordinary, obvious pleasure: the Bronx Zoo and the botanical gardens, the Coney Island roller coaster, the Staten Island ferry, the Empire State Building. You were the only New Yorker I'd ever met who'd actually taken the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. You dragged me along once, and we were the only tourists on the boat who spoke English. Representational art - Edward Hopper. And my lord, Franklin, a Republican. A belief in a strong defense but otherwise small government and low taxes. Physically, too, you were such a surprise - yourself a strong defense. There were times you were worried that I thought you too heavy, I made so much of your size, though you weighed in a t a pretty standard 165, 170, always battling those five pounds' worth of cheddar widgets that would settle over your belt. But to me you were enormous. So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches. How luck we are, when we've spared what we think we want! How weary I might have grown of all those silly pots and fussy diets, and how I detest the whine of sitar music!

I would stop by the table, where the kitchen-maid had shelled them, to inspect the platoons of peas, drawn up in ranks and numbered, like little green marbles, ready for a game; but what most enraptured me were the asparagus, tinged with ultramarine and pink which shaded off from their heads finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible gradations to their white feet—still stained a little by the soil of their garden-bed—with an iridescence that was not of this world. I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form and who, through the disguise of their firm, comestible flesh, allowed me to discern in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue evening shades, that precious quality which I should recognise again when, all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of them, they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting like one of Shakespeare's fairies) at transforming my chamber pot into a vase of aromatic perfume.

A real house with a copper pot for making jam, and sugar cookies in a metal box hidden deep inside a dresser. A long farmhouse table, thick and homey, and cretonne curtains. She smiled. She had no idea what cretonne was, or even if she'd like it, but she liked the way the words went together: cretonne curtains. She'd have a guest room and- who knows- maybe even some guests. A well-kept little garden, hens who'd provide her with tasty boiled eggs, cats to chase after the field mice and dogs to chase after the cats. A little plot of aromatic herbs, a fireplace, sagging armchairs and books all around. White tablecloths, napkin rings unearthed at flea markets, some sort of device so she could listen to the same operas her father used to listen to, and a coal stove where she could let a rich beef-and-carrot stew simmer all morning along. A rich beef-and-carrot stew. What was she thinking. A little house like the ones that kids draw, with a door and two windows on either side. Old-fashioned, discreet, silent, overrun with Virginia creeper and climbing roses. A house with those little fire bugs on the porch, red and black insects scurrying everywhere in pairs. A warm porch where the heat of the day would linger and she could sit in the evening to watch for the return of the heron.

From Tomorrow to Yesterday The tree trunks move in time with the rhythm of her rubber soles on the wet path, where the air is still cool after the night rain. The woodland floor is white with anemones; in one place, growing close to the roots of an ancient tree, they make her think of an old, wrinkled hand. She could go on and on without getting tired, without meeting anyone or thinking of anything in particular, and without coming to the edge of the woods. As if the town did not begin just behind the trees, the leafy suburb with its peaceful roads and its houses hidden behind close-trimmed hedges. She doesn't want to think about anything, and almost succeeds; her body is no more than a porous, pulsating machine. The sun breaks through the clouds as she runs back, its light diffused on the gravel drive and the magnolia in front of the kitchen window. His car is no longer parked beside hers, he must have left while she was in the woods. He hadn't stirred when she rose, and she'd already been in bed when he came home late last night. She lay with her back turned, eyes closed, as he undressed, taking care not to wake her. She leans against one of the pillars of the garage and stretches, before emptying the mailbox and letting herself into the house. She puts the mail on the kitchen table. The little light on the coffeemaker is on; she switches it off. Not so long ago, she would have felt a stab of irritation or a touch of tenderness, depending on her mood. He always forgets to turn off that machine. She puts the kettle on, sprinkles tea leaves into the pot, and goes over to the kitchen window. She observes the magnolia blossoms, already starting to open. They'll have to talk about it, of course, but neither of them seems able to find the right words, the right moment. She pauses on her way through the sitting room. She stands amid her furniture looking out over the lawn and the pond at the end of the garden. The canopies of the trees are dimly reflected in the shining water. She goes into the bathroom. The shower door is still spotted with little drops. As time went on they have come to make contact during the day only briefly, like passing strangers. But that's the way it has been since the children left home, nothing unusual in that. She takes off her clothes and stands in front of the mirror where a little while ago he stood shaving. She greets her reflection with a wry smile. She has never been able to view herself in a mirror without this moue, as if demonstrating a certain guardedness about what she sees. The dark green eyes and wavy black hair, the angularity of her features. She dyes her hair exactly the color it would have been if she hadn't begun to go gray in her thirties, but that's her only protest against age.

Pots hung from the ceiling beams, between the festoons of braided garlic, the hams, the salsicce, bunches of mountain herbs for medicine, strings of dried porcini, necklaces of dried apple rings in winter, chains of dried figs. The smell of onions, of hot lard and smoldering oak wood, of cinnamon and pepper, always seemed to hang in the air. The larder was full of meat at all times, needless to say: not small pieces, but huge joints and sides of beef and lamb, which Mamma and Carenza could never hope to use just for our household, and which were quietly passed on to the monks of Santa Croce so that they could feed the poor. Carenza made salami with fennel seeds and garlic, prosciutto, pancetta. Sometimes the air in the larder was so salty that it stung your nostrils, and sometimes it reeked of spoiled blood from the garlands of hares, rabbits, quail, thrushes and countless other creatures that would arrive, bloody and limp, from Papa's personal game dealer. Next to the larder, a door led out to our courtyard, which Mamma had kept filled with herbs. An ancient rosemary bush took up most of one side, and the air in summer was always full of bees. Sage, thyme, various kinds of mint, oregano, rocket, hyssop, lovage and basil grew in Mamma's collection of old terra-cotta pots. A fig tree was slowly pulling down the wall, and a tenacious, knotted olive tree had been struggling for years in the sunniest corner.

Elizabeth,” he said, trying not to laugh. “At a wedding reception, the guests cannot leave until the bride and groom retire. If you look over there, you’ll notice my great-aunts are already nodding in their chairs.” “Oh!” she exclaimed, instantly contrite. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” “Because,” he said, taking her elbow and beginning to guide her from the ballroom, “I wanted you to enjoy every minute of our ball, even if we had to prop the guests up on the shrubbery.” “Speaking of shrubbery,” she teased, pausing on the balcony to cast a last fond look at the “arbor” of potted trees with silk blossoms that occupied one-fourth the length of the entire ballroom, “everyone is talking about having gardens and arbors as themes for future balls. I think you’ve stared a new ‘rage.’” “You should have seen your face,” he teased, drawing her away, “when you recognized what I had done.” “We are probably the only couple,” she returned her face turned up to his in laughing conspiracy, “ever to lead off a ball by dancing a waltz on the sidelines.” When the orchestra had struck up the opening waltz, Ian had led her into the mock “arbor,” and they had started the ball from there. “Did you mind?” “You know I didn’t,” she returned, walking beside him up the curving staircase. He stopped outside her bed chamber, opened the door for her, and started to pull her into his arms, then checked himself as a pair of servants came marching down the hall bearing armloads of linens. “There’s time for this later,” he whispered. “All the time we want.

Outside the snapdragons, cords of light. Today is easy as weeds & winds & early. Green hills shift green. Cardinals peck at feeders—an air seed salted. A power line across the road blows blue bolts. Crickets make crickets in the grass. We are made & remade together. An ant circles the sugar cube. Our shadow’s a blown sail running blue over cracked tiles. Cool glistening pours from the tap, even on the edges. A red wire, a live red wire, a temperature. Time, in balanced soil, grows inside the snapdragons. In the sizzling cast iron, a cut skin, a sunny side runs yellow across the pan. Silver pots throw a blue shadow across the range. We must carry this the length of our lives. Tall stones lining the garden flower at once. Tin stars burst bold & celestial from the fridge; blue applause. Morning winds crash the columbines; the turf nods. Two reeling petal-whorls gleam & break. Cartoon sheep are wool & want. Happy birthday oak; perfect in another ring. Branch shadows fall across the window in perfect accident without weight. Orange sponge a thousand suds to a squeeze, know your water. School bus, may you never rust, always catching scraps of children’s laughter. Add a few phrases to the sunrise, and the pinks pop. Garlic, ginger, and mangoes hang in tiers in a cradle of red wire. That paw at the door is a soft complaint. Corolla of petals, lean a little toward the light. Everything the worms do for the hills is a secret & enough. Floating sheep turn to wonder. Cracking typewriter, send forth your fire. Watched too long, tin stars throw a tantrum. In the closet in the dust the untouched accordion grows unclean along the white bone of keys. Wrapped in a branch, a canvas balloon, a piece of punctuation signaling the end. Holy honeysuckle, stand in your favorite position, beside the sandbox. The stripes on the couch are running out of color. Perfect in their polished silver, knives in the drawer are still asleep. A May of buzz, a stinger of hot honey, a drip of candy building inside a hive & picking up the pace. Sweetness completes each cell. In the fridge, the juice of a plucked pear. In another month, another set of moths. A mosquito is a moment. Sketched sheep are rather invincible, a destiny trimmed with flouncy ribbon. A basset hound, a paw flick bitching at black fleas. Tonight, maybe we could circle the floodwaters, find some perfect stones to skip across the light or we can float in the swimming pool on our backs—the stars shooting cells of light at each other (cosmic tag)—and watch this little opera, faults & all.

The Monk in the Kitchen I ORDER is a lovely thing; On disarray it lays its wing, Teaching simplicity to sing. It has a meek and lowly grace, Quiet as a nun's face. Lo—I will have thee in this place! Tranquil well of deep delight, All things that shine through thee appear As stones through water, sweetly clear. Thou clarity, That with angelic charity Revealest beauty where thou art, Spread thyself like a clean pool. Then all the things that in thee are, Shall seem more spiritual and fair, Reflection from serener air— Sunken shapes of many a star In the high heavens set afar. II Ye stolid, homely, visible things, Above you all brood glorious wings Of your deep entities, set high, Like slow moons in a hidden sky. But you, their likenesses, are spent Upon another element. Truly ye are but seemings— The shadowy cast-oft gleamings Of bright solidities. Ye seem Soft as water, vague as dream; Image, cast in a shifting stream. III What are ye? I know not. Brazen pan and iron pot, Yellow brick and gray flag-stone That my feet have trod upon— Ye seem to me Vessels of bright mystery. For ye do bear a shape, and so Though ye were made by man, I know An inner Spirit also made, And ye his breathings have obeyed. IV Shape, the strong and awful Spirit, Laid his ancient hand on you. He waste chaos doth inherit; He can alter and subdue. Verily, he doth lift up Matter, like a sacred cup. Into deep substance he reached, and lo Where ye were not, ye were; and so Out of useless nothing, ye Groaned and laughed and came to be. And I use you, as I can, Wonderful uses, made for man, Iron pot and brazen pan. V What are ye? I know not; Nor what I really do When I move and govern you. There is no small work unto God. He required of us greatness; Of his least creature A high angelic nature, Stature superb and bright completeness. He sets to us no humble duty. Each act that he would have us do Is haloed round with strangest beauty; Terrific deeds and cosmic tasks Of his plainest child he asks. When I polish the brazen pan I hear a creature laugh afar In the gardens of a star, And from his burning presence run Flaming wheels of many a sun. Whoever makes a thing more bright, He is an angel of all light. When I cleanse this earthen floor My spirit leaps to see Bright garments trailing over it, A cleanness made by me. Purger of all men's thoughts and ways, With labor do I sound Thy praise, My work is done for Thee. Whoever makes a thing more bright, He is an angel of all light. Therefore let me spread abroad The beautiful cleanness of my God. VI One time in the cool of dawn Angels came and worked with me. The air was soft with many a wing. They laughed amid my solitude And cast bright looks on everything. Sweetly of me did they ask That they might do my common task And all were beautiful—but one With garments whiter than the sun Had such a face Of deep, remembered grace; That when I saw I cried—"Thou art The great Blood-Brother of my heart. Where have I seen thee?"—And he said, "When we are dancing round God's throne, How often thou art there. Beauties from thy hands have flown Like white doves wheeling in mid air. Nay—thy soul remembers not? Work on, and cleanse thy iron pot.

Merry Christmas.” he says quietly, pulling something from his back pocket. I frown in confusion then smile in delight when I see what it is. It’s a shiny, sharp trowel with a holly green handle. It’s stolen from the gardens for sure. It is the single greatest gift I’ve ever received. “It’s so pretty.” I whisper happily, turning it over to test its edge. “I promised you something shiny.” “And you delivered.” I press my finger against the tip then pull it back quickly. “It’s sharp.” “Why else have it, right? Keep it with you when you can. If something goes down while I’m gone I want to know you have it.” I nod my head as I slip it into my back pocket. The handle sticks up but the point is hidden. When I look up at Vin my heart skips. His eyes are sharp, intense. “Come with me.” he commands quietly. “No.” I reply immediately. I was waiting for this. From the moment he woke me up, the second I saw his eyes, I knew. And just as quickly as I recognized it, I knew what my answer would be. He shakes his head in disbelief. “You know I’m not coming back here. Not for you, not for anyone.” “Maybe not, but if I go with you then you definitely won’t.” “It’s not going to work, Joss.” he tells me seriously. “The Hive won’t bite. They don’t want to rock the boat with the Colonies and the pot isn’t sweet enough to convince them to try. They’ll pass and everyone here is going to either stay here forever or die in a revolt.” “Nats included.” I remind him coolly. “She’s a big girl. She knows how it really is. She can yell at me all she wants, but she knows just as well as I do that no one will come here to help.” “Especially if you don’t ask.” “What the hell do you want from me?” he whispers fiercely. “You want me to go out there and rally the troops, bring them back here riding on a tall white horse and save the day? I’m no hero. I never have been. It’s how I’ve stayed alive.” “It’s also a great way to stay alone. And if you do this, if you go and pretend we don’t exist, then I’ll pretend I never knew you. Nats will too, I’m sure. You’ll be nothing to no one and won’t that make life easier for you? So go on and go, you coward, and don’t ever look back because there’s nothing to look back on. You were never even here far as I’m concerned.” I turn to leave him standing there in the cold beside the words I wrote to Ryan, words that have gone unnoticed and feel like nothing in the night. I’m spun around roughly and pinned against Vin’s chest. His breath is coming even and hard, sharp inhales and exhales that burst against my face leaving my skin freezing in their absence. “Don’t turn your back on me.” he growls. I can see the enforcer in him now. The hard ass who lived on the outside by the skin of his teeth and grit under his knuckles. It’s something I understand, something I can respect. Something I can relate to. I lean closer, no longer being pulled but rather pushing against him until our faces almost touch. “No, don’t you turn your back on me. On us.” I whisper harshly, pushing at him aggressively. He lets me go and I stumble back from him. “I’m no hero.” he repeats. “How do you know until you’ve tried?” * * * “You’ll come back for us, Vin.” I whisper in his ear. “I know you will.” I know no such thing, but I want it to be true and I can tell he does too so I tell him that it is. I lie to us both and I hope it makes it real. Vin nods his head beside mine and buries his face in my shoulder. I do the same. We stand huddled together against the cold and the uncertainty of everything tomorrow will bring.

You always run to answer the bell, Agatha, and when you see me, your face always falls in disappointment, as if you were expecting someone else.

Feelie Box—Cut a hole in a shoebox lid. Place spools, buttons, blocks, coins, marbles, animals, and cars in the box. The child inserts a hand through the hole and tells you what toy she is touching. Or, ask her to reach in and feel for a button or car. Or, show her a toy and ask her to find one in the box that matches. These activities improve the child’s ability to discriminate objects without the use of vision. “Can You Describe It?”—Provide objects with different textures, temperatures, and weights. Ask her to tell you about an object she is touching. (If you can persuade her not to look at it, the game is more challenging.) Is the object round? Cool? Smooth? Soft? Heavy? Oral-Motor Activities—Licking stickers and pasting them down, blowing whistles and kazoos, blowing bubbles, drinking through straws or sports bottles, and chewing gum or rubber tubing may provide oral satisfaction. Hands-on Cooking—Have the child mix cookie dough, bread dough, or meat loaf in a shallow roasting pan (not a high-sided bowl). Science Activities—Touching worms and egg yolks, catching fireflies, collecting acorns and chestnuts, planting seeds, and digging in the garden provide interesting tactile experiences. Handling Pets—What could be more satisfying than stroking a cat, dog or rabbit? People Sandwich—Have the “salami” or “cheese” (your child) lie facedown on the “bread” (gym mat or couch cushion) with her head extended beyond the edge. With a “spreader” (sponge, pot scrubber, basting or vegetable brush, paintbrush, or washcloth) smear her arms, legs, and torso with pretend mustard, mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, etc. Use firm, downward strokes. Cover the child, from neck to toe, with another piece of “bread” (folded mat or second cushion). Now press firmly on the mat to squish out the excess mustard, so the child feels the deep, soothing pressure. You can even roll or crawl across your child; the mat will distribute your weight. Your child will be in heaven.

You can use annuals To fill an entire flowerbed (this popular use is why some places call annuals bedding plants) In container displays — in pots, windowboxes, patio planter boxes, and more To fill a hanging basket To edge a walkway To “spot” color in a perennial bed In edging and as decoration for a vegetable or herb garden To cover over or at least distract from a fading spring bulb display

Did I tell you about what happened last week with Marco?” Cass shook her head. “Well,” Mada began coyly, leaning in close to Cass and speaking quietly, “Father was out of town, you know, on business. But still, I can’t just have Marco over to the house, because one of the servants will tattle on me, guaranteed.” “So what did you do?” Cass played with a strand of hair that had escaped from her bonnet. Madalena lowered her voice even more. “I didn’t do anything. It was all Marco. He climbed the ivy vines from the canal to my window. I’m lucky he didn’t fall and drown.” She smiled dreamily. “I woke up in the middle of the night. I don’t know why. I just did. And Marco was sitting next to my bed, watching me sleep.” Madalena giggled. “At first I was mad at him for scaring me.” Cass couldn’t keep her jaw from dropping a little. She tried to imagine a boy sneaking into her own room to watch her sleep. Immediately, it was the face of the artist Falco she saw. Bright blue eyes. Crooked smile. She struggled to push his image from her mind. “And then?” Mada paused just long enough to allow the suspense to build. “And then he sat down next to me and took me in his arms. And we kissed until sunrise.” “Madalena Rambaldo! In your father’s house?” Cass made a pretend-scandalized face. Madalena giggled again. “Marco snuck back out--through the house, thankfully--just before first light, when the servants begin to go about their chores. A few minutes later and he might have gotten caught.” At that moment, the gardener, a stern-faced old man, appeared around a column in the courtyard with a large pot of water in his arms. Ignoring the girls, he began to water the rosebushes, which were still awaiting their first buds. Madalena and Cass bent their heads close together and laughed. “Let’s just say last week’s confession was interesting,” Madalena finished. “I think I made the priest blush.” Cass took a sip of her wine, savoring its sweetness. She wondered what it would feel like to kiss someone all night. Falco’s face materialized in her head again and she felt her cheeks redden.

The gardens at Acquasanta was the nearest place to paradise that I had ever seen. Well-trimmed palm trees and sweet-smelling pines were interspersed with fruit trees bearing oranges, lemons, grapefruits, and kumquats. The branches bowed down under the weight of the golden fruit. Low box hedges bordered the flower gardens. There were cornflowers and sweet peas and arum lilies. Terra cotta pots the size of men trailed trains of ivy and overflowed with pink geraniums.

and the title of the picture was ‘The Deserted Garden.’ Alice had often said that it was one of the few pictures that she had ever really liked and I suppose somebody must have repeated the remark to Paul. The result was that Paul, who had painted the picture, gave it to Alice. Nothing is happening in the picture, but much has already happened and in it there is the promise, or the threat, of the future. The plaster peels from the walls, the glass is broken in the Gothic window, the green shutter falls forward. But nothing happens; the final decay of that window and of the garden beyond is not yet. It may be that the house will be restored, that the rank grass will be mown, that the flower-pot which lies on its side will be righted and the plant it contains will flourish.

Gardens and friendship, said Epicurus: there is no other way. I think he was right. But one doesn't need too much garden, either - a few potted plants on a cafe terrace. And friends: one or two are enough.

Once, there was a spiritual Master who had a servant to help him with his daily chores. This servant used to carry two pots of water hung on a bamboo on his shoulders every day to the Master’s house. He would go up and down many times. When he was carrying this water, one of the pots that he was using was slightly cracked and it was always leaking water. The other pot, which was perfect, was always mocking the cracked pot – there are many crackpots here (laughs) – so the perfect pot was mocking every day, “See how I’m serving the Master? See how you are; you’re cracked. Half the water is gone by the time you reach the house.” This was happening. One day, after a long period of seclusion, the Master came out into the garden and walked along the pathway. He noticed, only on one side of the pathway, all along, there were lots of flowers in bloom. The Master looked at these wonderful flowers and said, “Whoever is the cause of making these flowers bloom on my pathway, let him attain,” He blessed. And the cracked pot attained! So there is hope for the cracked ones also. Now, don’t make it your right to be cracked!

He argued that the reformation of American hunting depends on recreating it as “the disciplined, mindful, sacred activity it once was for our species.” Likewise, he suggested that the redemption of our culture as a whole depends on bringing greater compassion and restraint to our relationships with animals and nature, on returning to an attitude of reverence, humility, and mutual regard. And he contended that such a cultural reformation can only be accomplished if more of us participate in “the world that feeds us”—whether by hunting, fishing, gardening, or growing a bit of lettuce or basil in a pot by a window.

Event planners dropped the ball on costs. One Rose Garden event required big, rented, air-conditioned tents that ruined the lawn. Landscaping crews and the National Park Service tore up all the dead grass, installed new sod, and sent them the bill. That’s expensive. But you can’t just have a whole White House lawn muddy and looking like crap. “Just get it done,” staffers would say. Party rental companies refused future events until they were paid. The discussions were plain embarrassing, but when I heard them I wasn’t eavesdropping. They were shouted in the hallway. The Clintons believed that a magic royal pot of money somehow existed for their every whim.

It doesn’t take a farm to invoke the iron taste of leaving in your mouth. Anyone who loves a small plot of ground — a city garden, a vacant lot with some guerilla beds, a balcony of pots — understands the almost physical hurt of parting from it, even for a minor stint. I hurt every day I wake up in our city bed, wondering how the light will be changing over the front field or across the pond, whether the moose will be in the willow by the cabin again, if the wren has fledged her young ones yet and we’ll return to find the box untended. I can feel where the farm is at any point in my day, not out of some arcane sixth sense developed from years of summer nights out there with the coyotes under the stars, but because of the bond between that earth and this body. Some grounds we choose; some are our instinctive homes.

Perched up on salvaged bricks, the half-pipes made perfect planters with an industrial edge that oddly complemented Sugar's pretty favorites: pansies, lantana, verbena and heliotrope. She laid two of them by the long wall of the taller building next door and planted a clematis vine at one end and a moonflower vine at the other: the clematis because the variety she picked had the prettiest purple bloom and the moonflower because it opened in the early evening and emanated a heavenly scent just when a person most felt like smelling one.

How to Plant a Container-Grown Fruit Tree or Shrub 1. Use a shovel or marking paint to mark the area for the hole. The planting hole should be at least twice as wide as the tree’s rootball. 2. Dig the planting hole. This hole should be just as deep as the rootball—no deeper! If you sharpen the spade before digging, this step will go faster. GROWING TIP Have you heard the saying, “plant ’em high”? Well, that refers to trees. Trees will settle a bit after planting. Always make sure that you finish the job with the top of the tree’s rootball about 3 inches above the soil line. If you plant a tree too deep, the place where the tree trunk and the tree roots meet can rot, which will kill the tree. 3. Set the tree in the planting hole to check the depth. If the top of the rootball is lower than the soil line around the edge of the planting hole, add some soil back into the hole, pull the tree out of the pot, and replace the tree in the hole. You never want the crown of the tree (the part where the tree trunk meets the tree roots) to be below the soil line. In clay soils, set the rootball so it is a few inches above the soil line. 4. Fill in around the tree with the same soil that you removed from the planting hole. Do not add fertilizer or new topsoil. Water will move more easily and the tree will root properly if the soil in and around the planting hole is the same. 5. Mulch around the tree, taking care to pull the mulch away from the tree trunk. Do not create a mulch “volcano” around the tree (by piling mulch up high around the trunk)—that just encourages insects and creatures that snack on tree bark to take up residence next to your delicious young tree. 6. Water the tree. Plan to water newly planted trees every three days (every other day if it is hot and dry). New trees don’t need to be staked unless they’re in areas prone to heavy rains and frequent winds. It can take a couple of years for newly planted trees to root into the surrounding soil, so continue to monitor your tree for signs that it needs water.

The roof of the apothecary was an enclosed glass greenhouse, filled with flowers and potted plants and fruit trees that had been hung with little glittering lights. The whole place had been transformed into a garden out of an ancient legend. The air was warm and sweet, and by the windows overlooking the expanse of the Avery River stood a small table set for two. Chaol surveyed the room, turning in place. “It’s the Fae woman’s garden—from Rena Goldsmith’s song,” he said softly. His golden eyes were bright. She swallowed hard. “I know it’s not much—” “No one has ever done anything like this for me.” He shook his head in awe, looking back at the greenhouse. “No one.

evolution of the lactase persistence allele, and it locates it in an area engulfing Slovakia, with Poland to the north and Hungary to the south. This fits with the archaeology, and the residues found in those Hungarian and Polish farmyard digs. At 7,500 years ago, these people were farmers with structured garden farms, where they grew wheat, peas, lentils, and millet. They husbanded cattle, swine, and goats, and occasionally hunted boar and deer on top of their agrarian lifestyle. They used flint and wooden tools, but not metal, and used earthenware vases, jugs, and pots with lined designs, from which we derive their name: Linear Pottery people.

Even today, with no spaces left on the shelves and walls, my octo-genarian mother builds stock off fanciful garden decor: a patch of copper whirligigs among the crepe myrtles, concrete tortoises creeping around the succulents, a ceramic Mediterranean pot that could house a small family.

Hey, we’ll let Huckleberry enjoy his lunch. Speaking of something, if you are in a better mood now, come with me to the Rainforest Room. I have something to show you. I wanted to wait until you calmed down because it means a lot to me, and I hoped you might be happy for me. Here, come with me.” He led her back to the previous room, which had amazing, rare rainforest plants in it. “Check this out!” He tossed her a magazine that said Horticultural Digest on the cover. Holly neatly caught it and opened it up to the dog-eared page. Blaring across the page in huge font was the title: WILLIAM SMITH, THE RAINMAKER OF SHELLESBY COLLEGE’S FAMOUS RAINFOREST ROOM. It was a five-page spread with big glossy photos of the Rainforest Room sprinkled throughout the article. “Five, count ‘em, five pages! That’s my record. Until now, they’ve only given me four. Check it out: I’m the Rainmaker, baby! Let it rain, let it rainnnn!” William stomped around in make-believe puddles on the floor. He picked up a garden hose lying along the side of the room and held it upright like an umbrella. “I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling. I’m happy again.” Holly squealed with laughter and applauded. William jumped up on a large over-turned pot and shifted the hose to now play air guitar while he repeated the verse. “William, there is no air guitar in that song!” “There is now, baby!” Holly exploded again in laughter, clutching her sides. After a few more seconds of air guitar, William jumped off the pot and lowered his voice considerably. “Thank you, thank you very much,” William said in his Elvis impersonation. He now held the garden hose like a microphone and said, “My next song is dedicated to my beagle, my very own hound dog, my Sweetpea. Sweetpea, girl, this is for youuuuuuu.” He now launched into Elvis’s famous “Hound Dog.” “You ain’t nothing but a hound dogggg.” With this, he also twirled the hose by holding it tight two feet from the nozzle, then twirling the nozzle in little circles above his head like a lasso. “Work it, William! Work it!” Holly screamed in laughter. He did some choice hip swivels as he sang “Hound Dog,” sending Holly into peals of laughter. “William, stop! Stop! Where are you? I can’t see I’m crying so hard!” William dropped his voice even lower and more dramatically. In his best Elvis voice, he said, “Well, if you can’t find me darlin’, I’ll find you.” He dropped on one knee and gently picked up her hand. “Thank you, thank you very much,” he said in Elvis mode. “My next song, I dedicate to my one and only, to my Holly-Dolly. Little prickly pear, this one’s for youuuuuu.” He now launched into Elvis’s famous “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” “Take my hand, take my whole life, too, for I can’t help falling in love with you.” With that, he gave her hand a soft kiss. He then jumped up onto an empty potting table and spun around once on his butt, then pushed himself the length of the entire table, and slid off the far end. “Loose, footloose!” William picked up his garden-hose microphone again and kept singing. “Kick off the Sunday shoes . . .” He sang the entire song, and then Holly exploded in appreciative applause. He was breathing heavily and had a million-dollar smile on his face. “Hoo-wee, that was fun! I am so sweaty now, hoo-boy!” He splashed some water on his face, and then shook his hair. “William! When are you going to enter that karaoke contest at the coffee shop in town? They’re paying $1,000 to the winner of their contest. No one can beat you! That was unbelievable!” “That was fun.” William laughed. “Are in a better mood now?” “How can I not be? You are THE best!

The best thing about Paris? It’s a city of readers,” our neighbor said. She said that in friends’ homes, books were as important as the furniture. She spent her summers reading in the city’s lush parks, then like the potted palmettos in the Tuileries Garden, sent to the greenhouse at the first sign of frost, she spent winters at the library, curled up near the window with a book in her lap.

The roof of the apothecary was an enclosed glass greenhouse, filled with flowers and potted plants and fruit trees that had been hung with little glittering lights. The whole place had been transformed into a garden out of an ancient legend. The air was warm and sweet, and by the windows overlooking the expanse of the Avery River stood a small table set for two.

Coorie gardens have a common trait: there will be at least one place that encourages reflection and peacefulness. A coorie spot could be a garden grotto, blending into the scenery with trained climbers concealing its form or a basic summerhouse with space to sit. A balcony with a comfortable chair where you can turn your face to the sun and read a book is a perfect coorie space. Even a shared back court with a picnic bench can be dressed with lanterns and potted plants to conjure the feeling of coorie. Some intrepid souls might like to string a hammock out to evoke the ultimate sense of downtime.

I listened to the crackling fire, the chirp of birds in the garden's potted evergreens- so different from the spring-sweet melodies I was used to. That I might never hear or be able to endure again. Maybe Amarantha had won after all. And some strange, new part of me wondered if my never returning might be a fitting punishment for him. For what he had done to me.

Cardan comes over, stepping on my star chart, kicking over the ink-pot with his silver-tipped boots, sending the blood spilling across the paper, blotting out my marks. 'Come with me,' he says imperiously. 'I knew you liked her,' says Locke. 'That's why I had to have her first. Do you remember the party in my maze garden? How I kissed her while you watched.' 'I recall that your hands were on her, but her eyes were on me,' Cardan returns. 'That's not true!' I insist, but I remember Cardan on a blanket with a daffodil-haired faerie girl. She pressed her lips to the edge of his boot, and another girl kissed his throat. His gaze had turned to me when one of them began kissing his mouth. His eyes were coal-bright, wet as tar. The memory comes with the slide of Locke's palm over my back, heat in my cheeks, and the feeling my skin was too tight, that everything was too much.

As Dina walked down the hall, the floorboards seamlessly transformed into blue and white tiles beneath her feet. She found herself standing in the heart of the house: a riad with a bubbling mosaic fountain, vines twisting up the walls and, above her, fuchsias blooming in terra-cotta pots and miniature date trees coiling around the pillars. It was more of a garden than a room, really. The ceiling was open to the night sky, burnished stars in an inky darkness. It wasn't the real sky of course, but the house's magic was powerful. Dina could even hear crickets chirping in the distance and the cinnamon scent of the earth in Khemisset, where her mother had grown up. She exhaled deeply, the feeling of being home sinking into her bones.

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About these homes and at the intersections of the roads in this nomadic “city” are the gardens. Each is unique. One may center around an unusually shaped stump or an arrangement of stones or a graceful bit of wood. They may contain fragrant herbs or bright flowers or any combination of plants. One notable one has at its heart a bubbling spring of steaming water. Here grow plants with fleshy leaves and exotically scented flowers, denizens of some warmer clime brought here to delight the Mountain-dwellers with their mystery. Often visitors leave gifts in the gardens when they depart, a wooden carving or a graceful pot or perhaps merely an arrangement of bright pebbles. The gardens belong to no one, and all tend them.

Not long after he and Margaret were married, he'd complimented her on a pot of yellow blossoms near the front door. She'd laughed, and blushed, and then confessed that weeks earlier, watching him walk around the vegetable garden, she'd slipped out, dug up a brick-sized clump of earth which held the clear impression of his right foot, and tucked it into the flower pot. In that earth she'd planted a chrysanthemum, hoping that as it bloomed year after year so would his love for her. How should he marry again, after that?

Holy, holy, holy”, seems written on every page. To talk of comparing the Bible with other “sacred books” so-called, such as the Koran, the Shasters, or the book of Mormon, is positively absurd. You might as well compare the sun with a rushlight, or Skiddaw with a mole hill, or St. Paul’s with an Irish hovel, or the Portland vase with a garden pot, or the Koh-i-noor diamond with a bit of glass.

You know I know next to zip about gardening, right? It's easy. You buy the pretty pots from the nursery, you stick them in the ground. If they die, you buy more. If not, you brag like there's no tomorrow.

Morris wondered what domestic catastrophe would make a man sell even the plaster gnomes from his garden.It was a horrid piece of evidence for mutability; Mutability, goddess of the auction room, dusty-fingered Mutability, the old-age pensioner goddess. And she ruled over the casserole containing the half-empty packet of sugar no one would ever finish, now; and the dropsical white tea-pot with the brown tidemark left in by years of the-making by dead women in flowered aprons ( withered and dead, all the chintz flowers); over all the odd, disjointed fragments of other people's lives.

To hear Camrose tell of it, as he often does and in excruciating detail, his early years were tantamount to a parallel Dickensian universe inasmuch as every meal was boiled down to gruel. (Please sir, I don’t want any more.) Whatever vegetables the commune were able to come by through barter, theft or scavenging – though oddly not from a community garden which no one had ever thought to plant – were tossed into a pot with a few heaping scoops of lentils and a handful of curry powder, then boiled down until thick and grayish brown. The resulting semi-solid porridge landed in the bowl with a wet thump reminiscent of raw liver smacking the floor and forced its way to the stomach with an angry lurch. Invalids fed through feeding tubes found more satisfaction in their daily bread than young Camrose.

The row of villas which lines Western Avenue is like a row of pink graves in a field of grey; an architectural image of middle age. Their uniformity is the discipline of growing old, of dying without violence and living without success. They are houses which have got the better of their occupants, whom they change at will, and do not change themselves. Furniture vans glide respectfully among them like hearses, discreetly removing the dead and introducing the living. Now and then some tenant will raise his hand, expending pots of paint on the woodwork or labour on the garden, but his efforts no more alter the house than flowers a hospital ward, and the grass will grow its own way, like grass on a grave.

Why, this would make a man a man of salt, To use his eyes for garden water-pots, Ay, and laying autumn’s dust.

As soon as Mr. Clinton became the president, Mrs. Clinton and her staff sought to repair the Clinton brand among groups they thought had been damaged during the campaign, scheduling galas, balls, and dinners. They hosted open house tours day and night, especially around Christmas and for the military. What she and her staffers failed to realize was that the White House had a budget like any other government entity. Each shindig still had to be paid either from the Executive Residence budget or the Democratic Party’s purse. Event planners dropped the ball on costs. One Rose Garden event required big, rented, air-conditioned tents that ruined the lawn. Landscaping crews and the National Park Service tore up all the dead grass, installed new sod, and sent them the bill. That’s expensive. But you can’t just have a whole White House lawn muddy and looking like crap. “Just get it done,” staffers would say. Party rental companies refused future events until they were paid. The discussions were plain embarrassing, but when I heard them I wasn’t eavesdropping. They were shouted in the hallway. The Clintons believed that a magic royal pot of money somehow existed for their every whim.