EMERSON SAID that “unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” That’s what this video, part of a larger project for “National Geographic,” says to me. Dare! That, and this: We are tiny, and nature is vast. (Details of the project on the jump.)
videos
Gardening and nature videos.
new book video: my seed-shopping rules
January 8, 2013 By 16 Comments
THIS YEAR—2013—IS MY SILVER ANNIVERSARY of professional garden writing, and in that many trips around the block, er, border, some things have become second nature. Like how to shop for seeds without taking a second mortgage or buying a farm to fit them. In my latest video from “The Backyard Parables” series, the companion to my new book, I share my seed-shopping “rules” (and lots of juicy photos I’ve taken, too). Watch it, share it, and maybe buy a book if you want more how-to like this that’s layered inside a bigger memoir about my relationship with my life partner of 25 years: my own beloved backyard. Details: [read more…]
whee!
December 30, 2012 By 10 Comments
WHEE! The birds and I were happy yesterday for snow here at Cupcake Falls, New York (and I suspect you can hear some opera playing in the background, which ain’t bad, either). We asked for a winter, and maybe–just maybe–we’re going to get our wish.
pam warhurst and edible todmorden, england: ‘how we can eat our landscapes’
August 15, 2012 By 12 Comments
SITTING AT A KITCHEN TABLE with like-minded neighbors in her English hometown several years ago, Pam Warhurst helped found a dynamic greening group called Incredible Edible Todmorden. No board meetings, no surveys or reports first, she says: They did it “without a flippin’ strategy document,” because they thought that creating gardens–especially food gardens–in unused spaces around town, reconnecting citizens to the source of their food as a first step toward sustainability, was very simply a good idea. “We call it propaganda gardening,” she says. Indeed. [read more…]
murmuration: watch this and feel better
December 15, 2011 By 13 Comments
SO WHAT IF IT’S A COUPLE OF MONTHS OLD–positively ancient in internet times. Watching this short film of a murmuration, or gathering, of starlings lent perspective and poetry to the start of a new day. Thanks to my friends Josh and Brent of Beekman1802 for pointing out Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith’s video, shot on the River Shannon in Ireland. I ought to lift my head up out of this book manuscript more often before too much more life flies by. Want to hear about some of the other collective nouns used to describe groups of particular birds? Try this short radio clip from KPIU, the Seattle NPR affiliate.
