"Life in an out of the way place carries universal import, and people everywhere seem to understand what David Mallett's songs are about. Although they are rooted in place, they speak to the essential things that move us all. If you grow up in a small rural town, as Mallett did, you can't help but learn its stories. He knows about the people who shouldn't have stayed, but did, and those who shouldn't have left, but did..."
Just ordered the CD after reading about this in the Bangor Daily News.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
When you gotta go !
....ahh, life with little boys ! Betcha Michelle never thought about doing this before Garrett and Alan came along!
TK
Play (yawn) Ball !
Glad to see I'm not the only guy thinking this way !!
A DAD'S LAMENT
Game Time Vs. Bedtime
By Philip Lerman
Sunday, October 14, 2007; Page B02
The signs of fall are upon us: The days are shorter. The leaves are falling.
And dads are sitting in their basements, watching the baseball playoffs and getting ready for the World Series. Alone.
A DAD'S LAMENT
Game Time Vs. Bedtime
By Philip Lerman
Sunday, October 14, 2007; Page B02
The signs of fall are upon us: The days are shorter. The leaves are falling.
And dads are sitting in their basements, watching the baseball playoffs and getting ready for the World Series. Alone.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
what i'm reading- The Prince of Thieves
i originally picked this up to read on our trip to the UK...just getting around to reading it now. really good so far, with some fairly accurate descriptions and dialog of Boston.
Take care of your Mum's - Latest Column
Sacrificial Mums
By Tim King
Do me a favor - after you’ve returned home from your local garden center, take a minute and put your mums (chrysanthemums) in the ground. You’ll notice I did not say on the porch, on the steps or on the ground next to the driveway. In the ground. The mums you just spent $30 on are not one hit wonders meant to dazzle for a few short weeks and then be discarded. They have more life to give.
In a few weeks, thousands of spruce and pine trees will be harvested, packaged and delivered for Christmas celebrations across the country. That is their fate. It’s what they were born and raised to be. They have had their time in the wild, living under the stars and watching the seasons change from their northern fields.
But the colorful mums we buy are different. They are whole plants, not simply ornamental figureheads. They have roots, stems, leaves and flowers that will last many years - if treated right.
It amazes me year after year, the shear volume of colorful chrysanthemums that are on display at nurseries, supermarkets, superstores and even hardware stores. It seems to me that the number of mums for sale always far outnumber the amount of shoppers looking to add some color to their dying landscapes.
Mums come in a wide variety of colors, shapes and sizes to offer something for everyone. Bright reds, deep maroon, orange, yellow or white, purple, even shades of blue are available to complement any house palette. At this time of year, there are very few choices when it comes to flowering plants. This is the mum’s time to shine.
For this reason, each year thousands are displayed in yards across New England for a few weeks, only to be left for dead and tossed in the trash after Thanksgiving. I just can’t see the point in spending money, year after year, to replace something that is made to come back on its own.
Imagine deciding to replace your new car after it ran out of its first tank of gas, or never taking the goldfish out of the plastic bag when you brought it home from the pet store. A week later, you look at the bag on your counter with its “sleeping” resident and simply flush it away and go get another one. Doesn’t make sense, right?
To me, buying a mum without intending to take care of it is equally negligent. What these plants want more than anything is to be in the ground. Sure, some plants don’t mind the ground-like environments that we create for them in pots and containers indoors. But I’m talking about wild, hardy perennials here.
The mum is plant designed to put on a colorful show, then hunker down to patiently wait out the cold until the warmth of Spring returns. I wonder how many of you have secretly questioned the “hardiness” of the mums’ moniker after witnessing them wilted and dying after the first hard frost. Not so hardy you might think.
I’d like to see how hardy you would be without basic warmth and protection from the elements. Although the surface air may dip below freezing, the underground roots stay relatively warm and toasty into November.
So, if you’ve got some mums just chilling in a pot on your front steps, dig a hole three feet to the left or right…and plant them! Next year, buy some more, then plant those too. Pretty soon, you’ll have a fantastic fall garden that will return and expand on its own each year.
Tim King is a freelance writer who sees the forest and the trees from his home in Scarborough. He can be reached at - sylvan.sauntering@gmail.com
By Tim King
Do me a favor - after you’ve returned home from your local garden center, take a minute and put your mums (chrysanthemums) in the ground. You’ll notice I did not say on the porch, on the steps or on the ground next to the driveway. In the ground. The mums you just spent $30 on are not one hit wonders meant to dazzle for a few short weeks and then be discarded. They have more life to give.
In a few weeks, thousands of spruce and pine trees will be harvested, packaged and delivered for Christmas celebrations across the country. That is their fate. It’s what they were born and raised to be. They have had their time in the wild, living under the stars and watching the seasons change from their northern fields.
But the colorful mums we buy are different. They are whole plants, not simply ornamental figureheads. They have roots, stems, leaves and flowers that will last many years - if treated right.
It amazes me year after year, the shear volume of colorful chrysanthemums that are on display at nurseries, supermarkets, superstores and even hardware stores. It seems to me that the number of mums for sale always far outnumber the amount of shoppers looking to add some color to their dying landscapes.
Mums come in a wide variety of colors, shapes and sizes to offer something for everyone. Bright reds, deep maroon, orange, yellow or white, purple, even shades of blue are available to complement any house palette. At this time of year, there are very few choices when it comes to flowering plants. This is the mum’s time to shine.
For this reason, each year thousands are displayed in yards across New England for a few weeks, only to be left for dead and tossed in the trash after Thanksgiving. I just can’t see the point in spending money, year after year, to replace something that is made to come back on its own.
Imagine deciding to replace your new car after it ran out of its first tank of gas, or never taking the goldfish out of the plastic bag when you brought it home from the pet store. A week later, you look at the bag on your counter with its “sleeping” resident and simply flush it away and go get another one. Doesn’t make sense, right?
To me, buying a mum without intending to take care of it is equally negligent. What these plants want more than anything is to be in the ground. Sure, some plants don’t mind the ground-like environments that we create for them in pots and containers indoors. But I’m talking about wild, hardy perennials here.
The mum is plant designed to put on a colorful show, then hunker down to patiently wait out the cold until the warmth of Spring returns. I wonder how many of you have secretly questioned the “hardiness” of the mums’ moniker after witnessing them wilted and dying after the first hard frost. Not so hardy you might think.
I’d like to see how hardy you would be without basic warmth and protection from the elements. Although the surface air may dip below freezing, the underground roots stay relatively warm and toasty into November.
So, if you’ve got some mums just chilling in a pot on your front steps, dig a hole three feet to the left or right…and plant them! Next year, buy some more, then plant those too. Pretty soon, you’ll have a fantastic fall garden that will return and expand on its own each year.
Tim King is a freelance writer who sees the forest and the trees from his home in Scarborough. He can be reached at - sylvan.sauntering@gmail.com
Monday, October 01, 2007
Red Sox clinch the Division - And we were there !!!
Garrett and me at the Red Sox game on Friday night. That's us in the top right hand corner....I'm the guy with his arm in the air next to the guy with the white shirt. Garrett is the small brown smudge next to me. It was pretty friggin' cool to be there watching the Orioles beat the Yankee's on the Fenway jumbotron. I pulled this picture off Boston.com the next day.
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