It’s mid May and I’m weeding my garden again. It is one of the most spiritually instructive physical activities of my year. My on-going battle with one weed in particular functions as a genuine icon of my inner life.  Generally speaking, my wife and I are laissez-faire gardeners. We have very few rows of anything, just areas where we plant one thing or another—often led by what volunteers in a given…
Every spring I muse on the weeds in my garden. A particularly demonic weed (from my perspective) is convolvulus arvensis: Bindweed. Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it. The only way to get rid of it completely is to kill everything using something like Roundup—and that’s only if it has not flowered. If it has flowered and produced seeds, well then you are looking at 20 years of volunteer bindweed. I am not…
My wife is a Beatrix Potter fan. I think she has collected all of her little books and many books about her. If you have ever received a thank-you card from Bonnie, you can see the influence of Beatrix Potter on her doodles and water colours. Often Bonnie will decorate with Beatrix. Sometimes she will open a book to a particular page and then mount the book on the wall. Right next…
