Blog

The Sea Ranch is legendary in the annals of California Coastal development.  In the early 1960's, ten miles of the Sonoma Coast was designated for development, in an era before there was any regulatory agency overseeing coastal development. Now, and as a result of such...

I am a member of the Lawn Reform Coalition, a group of garden designers and environmental advovates who are promoting new ways to think about the American fetish for lawns.  Since my own particular advocacy is for sustainability, and most recently, meadow gardening specifically,...

A recent assignment took me to a very special magnolia in a very special, private garden.  The resulting photo was to be a surprise gift, and I was only allowed access during one afternoon when the owner was away. I previously wrote about this adventure on Gardening...

Let's actually do something about climate change.  The Green New Deal is an actual plan.  Support it. The climate has changed: recent fires in California, early hurricanes in the Gulf, Canadian ice shelves breaking off into the sea.   Let's stop wringing our hands. When young...

The vision in my left eye is still quite blurry.  Unless I really concentrate on what I am seeing, my right eye dominates and I simply have a hazy sense of looming weirdness.  And unless I stick my head up real close to something,...

It is somehow appropriate that I add to Mental Seeds with a post about seeds themselves.  Seeds hold the promise of renewal and after months of insignificant distractions and artificial deadlines I need to re-invigorate. My left eye continues to be blurry, now with a...

I have missed two entire months.  For the record, I fell off a ladder onto my studio floor on Aug. 30.  Six broken ribs, separated shoulder, fractured skull, and concussion.  Life can change in an instant. Much recovered by now except a residual paralyzed facial...

After retina surgery, the doctors put a nitrous oxide gas bubble into my eye.  This is just enough pressure to hold the retina in place while it heals.  The bubble is the reason my eyesight is so blurry in the left eye. Depending on how...

It began with a vague suspicion.  Was my vision, out there in the outer periphery of the left eye, blurry?  Now, you say, how could you not know your retina was becoming detached ? The blurriness of my eye was a filminess that would surely...

I am sometimes baffled by what I see. I will slap my face looking at a scene and wonder why am I not seeing what I expect to see.  The Tupelo tree (Nyssa sylvatica) in my front yard commands attention when it comes into fall color,...