It was a full-on blizzard, I was in Kansas City, and it was time for me to head home.

This was the scene 29 years ago.

It was late October, and one of the earliest snowstorms on record had moved in while I was presenting a talk to the Johnson County Master Gardeners.

It was just raining when I arrived in KC. The temperature was above freezing...but just barely. The weatherman had predicted the precipitation, and he had said the temps were going to be hovering around the freezing mark, but I don’t remember a lot of talk about snow…

A few months ago, I wrote about our son, Cooper, heading off to Spokane, Washington, for his first contract as a traveling nurse.

My wife traveled out with him and helped him settle into his new place... moms are good at that. But that was three months ago, and that first assignment just came to an end.

Last week, I flew out to Spokane and traveled back home with him. It was a long drive!

We spent three days on the road cranking out the miles, but we also. …

My wife and I were traveling a few weeks back, and the hotel we stayed at had a lobby decoration that caught my eye.

It was a cross-cut section of an old tree trunk, and as you can see, it wasn’t just any old tree trunk...this one had a lot of character!

It’s just cool looking...the contrasting color of the sapwood and the heartwood, the rotted-out center and the unusual, curled growth...this cross section looks like a great big, grown by nature, “C”.

Besides just looking cool, this is a great example of how trees try to “heal” wounds.

Hang on, arboriculture class is underway!. …

Farm to table.

That’s a popular catchphrase these days and a mission a lot of restaurants embrace...work with the local farms to source locally produced food, into their operations and onto their tables.

There’s logic behind the idea...support the local community, cut down on transportation inputs for food distribution, work with fresher, higher quality, and often better tasting ingredients, and embrace and celebrate the seasonality of the food we eat.

It’s a popular idea, and one that all of us participate in when we grow our own food.

Whether your garden is just a tomato plant or two on the patio or a large plot out back, if you’re growing things you eat, you’re participating in farm-to-table. …

My wife and I got away for a little vacation recently.

It was actually a combination of some vacation, a little bit of work, and a trip to see our son. Our son, Cooper, recently started a stint as a traveling nurse. His first contract landed him in Spokane, Washington, and that got the whole idea of a trip started.

Next came the need to head to Oregon for a little bit of work. …

A few weeks ago, I started seeing brown spots in the lawn. And there were a lot of them.

Brown patches in lawn...in the heat and humidity of July...sounds like a disease, right?

That would be a logical conclusion given the time of year, but in this case, I could tell that wasn’t the right. So, what were they???

I’ve seen similar brown patches in our lawn before. They are always at random times of the year and in random locations...and I’ve never been able to figure out what’s going on.

It’s always the same. A patch shows up...or several patches show up...they look like dead spots in the yard for a while, and then eventually the crowns of the grass push up new blades, and a month later, everything looks normal again.

Weird, right?!

Like I said, I could tell they weren’t diseased. They didn’t fit the pattern of insect activity. Maybe pee spots? There are plenty of dogs in the neighborhood. That might explain things out front, but the back yard is fenced. Maybe other critters...raccoons, possums, deer? That seemed like a stretch, but I was running out of explanations.

What were they?! …

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

I heard this line in a podcast I was listening to the other day...and I like it.

In the discussion I was listening to, it was being used relative to some pretty heavy life circumstances. It applied well to the conversation I was listening too, and I think it applies to a lot of things in our lives... even gardening.

See how I did that? Everything leads back to gardening!

For years, I have helped people with planting/landscaping/gardening decisions, helping folks figure out the right plants, the right combinations, the right choices.

The conversation usually flows around the noteworthy ornamental features like…

Our son just moved to Spokane, Washington.

For the last two years, he’s been working as a nurse in Kansas City. Now, for the next three months, he’ll be working a traveling nurse...in Spokane.

He left last week, his car loaded with his belongings, and his mom riding along as his co-pilot. It was a bittersweet moment saying our goodbyes in the driveway before he left. I was excited about his new opportunity, but I was sad to see him leave. It was tough!…

I got a special treat this Father’s Day weekend.  I got to attend the Symphony in the Flint Hills...and it was amazing!  

My wife and I attended this event for the first time, last year. Once we were there, we knew we’d be back.  

It’s just so amaing! I love Flint Hills, and the prairie that covers them...I can really geek out over that! Add in a symphonic performance in the middle of all that beauty and you’ve got a very special experience. 

We made the journey this year, joined by both our daughters, a boyfriend and several good friends. Everyone was blown away. It was an absolutely wonderful event…

Tomatoes.

I’ve got two quick stories for you today revolving around tomatoes.

My wife and I stopped by Pendleton’s Country Market the other day, a family farm located on the outskirts of Lawrence, and growers of all kinds of produce and cut flowers. They also grow asparagus crowns. That’s what you plant to grow asparagus in your own garden.

Almost all the asparagus crowns we’ve sold here at our store in the forty-plus years I’ve been around our business have come from their farm. It would be fair to say…

Squirrels can be a pain.

Every year, as I’m pulling oak seedlings and walnut seedlings out of every garden nook and cranny...including the pots on my patio and the baskets hanging from the eaves... that thought comes to mind. Squirrels can be a real pain.

A couple of Sundays ago, I ran across one that took things to a whole new level.

I came into work early to try and get caught up on things. As I walked into the store, I was bombarded with a chorus of battery backups, all sounding their alarms. It was battery backup chaos!…

I just had to stop and take a picture of this yard the other day...

These are Silver Maple seeds “decorating” a freshly mowed lawn.

It’s a scene repeated all over town. Silver Maple seeds covering lawns...and sidewalks and driveways and patios...and the list goes on. They are everywhere right now.

If you live near one of these, you’re familiar with these seeds. Technically, they are samaras. But we all know their true name...“helicopters”...and “helicopters” are large, they are produced in great quantities, and this time of the year, they are everywhere.. .…

We’re having a disagreement…. my wife and I. 

I’ve been calling him Otis. She’s not too keen on that name, but so far, we haven’t come up with anything different, so, for now... 

He’s still Otis. 

Or maybe, she’s still Otis. That’s a distinct possibility, too. 

Confused?  

I’m talking about our latest family addition... a gift of sourdough starter. .…

I feel like it’s finally here.

Spring!

We just had our Spring Kick-Off Weekend, and for the first time this season, I finally felt like spring was really here. Things were blooming, birds were chirping, and our store was full of folks ready to do some planting.…

Wind.

Not my favorite “feature” of our weather.

It’s windier than you-know-what today. Everything is blowing over, the world outside is a giant dust cloud and my face is getting peppered with windblown sand.

This sucks!

I’m not happy when it’s bitterly cold and I’m not thrilled when the mercury is threatening to squirt out the top of the thermometer, but I can deal with both. Wind on the other hand... it just wears me down.

By the end of the day, I’m exhausted. Between the beating of the wind and the roar of the same, it’s just too much. I call it…

As nice as the past week or so has been, it’s hard to believe it was 13 degrees below zero just a short time ago, but it was! Those extremes should be behind us now, but cold weather, ice, snow are back today and may pop up again before it’s all said and done. I don’t say that to scare anyone, it’s just a good reminder that we’re still working our way out of winter while we push our way into spring. We’ll be in that fuzzy part for the next month or so, where those two seasons will be battling it out for control. We’ll just be stuck in the middle for a bit!

The good news... spring will eventually win out! In the meantime, we all would be wise to respect that winter isn’t completely done just yet. Start cautiously into your gardening activities and stay focused on projects that are okay with the back-and-forth weather tug-of-war this time of the year presents.

So, what is it okay to do at this time of the year? …

Sometimes I feel old.

The other night, I caught the 50th Anniversary special for Saturday Night Live. SNL’s been around for fifty years, and I remember watching it in the early days. Now that makes me feel old!

I have vivid memories of staying up on Saturday nights to watch the original Not Ready for Primetime Players do their thing…

Winter comes and goes... but lately, it feels like it’s mostly been coming.

It spent most of January hanging out like a visiting relative overstaying their welcome, finally giving us a brief break as January’s snow cover finally fell victim to milder temps, sunny skies, and a little rain. But as I write this, more snow and cold weather is in our forecast.

It’s not going away without a fight!

So, winter’s still here for a while. No big surprise there, but…

The other day was a BLT day… Well, sort of.

I’ll be honest. We were out of lettuce. That was bad planning on my part. So, technically, it was a BT day but that just sounds weird. So, I’m taking some liberty here, and for my story, it will still be a BLT day.

For what it’s worth, the bread was homemade... honey whole wheat. So, maybe that buys me a little slack?

Anyway, this one... this BLT... was special. You could even say it was magical.

A BLT with fresh garden tomatoes is always a treat. But when you have fresh juicy garden tomatoes in the middle of January, well now that’s a magical treat

This BLT had a lot going for it!

The tomato involved in this culinary caper came from…

Wow...that was a lot of snow last week! We’re only a short stretch into our first real taste of winter and I’m already checking the calendar to see how much longer we’ve got until spring.

I’m impatient.

I also like being outside and doing things besides shoveling snow! But it looks like we’re all going to be forced out of the garden for a while now. No surprise there, given the time of the year, but that doesn’t mean I like it. The reality is, it’s going to be…