Nope, he’s not choking it! This chick was rowdy before it came out of the shell, and there are only two ways to keep it still. If I set it on my shoulder, it’ll burrow into the long hair at my neck and sing soft happy chirps — for about 20 seconds, and [...]

I always grow purple petunias, not because I like them, but because my younger daughter liked them so much when she was small. I think she still favors them, but not with the single-minded exhuberance she exhibited a decade ago. She’s grown now, and she no longer spends summers weeding at my side [...]

Wild bergamot aka horsemint, bee balm
Monarda fistulosa

I didn’t see so much of it during the drought the last two years, but a wet spring seems to have rejuvenated the prairie flowers. I’ve found a few small patches on my land, and several large patches down the road at the edge of a cornfield and [...]

Bruce the Duck came to live with us earlier this summer. His journey began with a phone call from the Genius Husband. ‘You want another duck?” Hmm. Yeah. I didn’t have enough of those.
Bruce belonged to a teenage girl, and he spent his early days as a fuzzy, yellow, adored pet. But as ducks do, [...]