I recently completed a set of shelves and cabinets for my friend Joanne. On either side of her fireplace, there were backset areas that cried out to be filled, and lo! they were.

  Lower cabinets up to 40″ with moulding-trimmed doors and open shelves up above. I connected the ensemble with a sort of crown moulding all across the top, and added a center ‘keystone’ to give it symmetry and focus.

I also finshed out the large pass-through from her kitchen to the dining area. Originally there was a homemade, tiled counter, but it had warped from not being properly affixed to the framing. Then it was a matter of trimming out around the opening with the same casing we have been using, and voila! Neat, attractive  and finished looking!

I have been engaged to ‘reincarnate’ a small backyard! I say reincarnate because the original ‘soul’ of the yard will still be there, but it will come back in a new, updated and personalized form. New retaining wall/sitwall, leveling up the bricks, more and new plantings, with more color and texture. There will also be several glazed pots added with spiral topiaries in some, roses in others, and flowing, flowering gardens in others.

The start of our work to redesign the yard!

Photos of all the changes and resulting garden will follow soon!

There is something so gratifying and exciting about painting. When I am really into it, fully concentrating on the mixing of the colors and shading of the objects, trying to remember the source of the light and instilling a feeling into the scene, I am totally unaware of sound, or self or the passage of time. It is only when I have to break concentration that I come back to reality. While getting to paint for the Williams’ I had many such moments. They were moments that freed me from all the other things on my plate that have to be dealt with, if only for a while. But those moments were worth perhaps hours of therapy, in allowing me to be focused on one thing, and to put all my thoughts and feelings and worries aside, to be one with the brush!

If you are reading this blog, I hope it is because you have the desire to have, be in and love a Garden. It is where we came from, and a part of us is yearning to return. Whether the desire is passionate or merely curious, my purpose in writing this blog is to inform, engage and help all who read to find their way into their Garden, and thereby find the peace, beauty and abundance it offers us. The Garden is a place to be and experience, and can be a meditative place. The act of Gardening is, in itself, a meditation. The old monastic adage ” laborare es orare” means ‘to work is to pray’, and for those of you reading who do garden, that will be a familiar experience. For those who have not yet had their own Garden, it will be a rewarding thing yet-to-be-experienced. The Garden is also a healing place: Color Therapy, Light and Vibratory Therapy, Aromatherapy,and much more besides. And beyond all the esoterica, the practical purposes of writing this will be to share information and tips to help each of us become more successful at Gardening so that the work we do put into it will be rewarded with output – bouquets in our homes from our OWN Gardens, fruits and vegetables from our OWN Gardens, and perhaps have enough to share with our friends and families.I would also like to share ways of dealing with the inevitable hurdles that try to get in our way – the heat, the bugs, watering, etc. and to share ideas for harvesting and preserving the abundance that sometimes comes with success. Most of us hate to waste, and I find that wasting the abundance of our labors is so discouraging that many of us just give up. I hope to encourage each person whose goal it is to bring forth abundance to do so with a minimum of time and effort, to really grasp what it means to Garden, and to feel confident in ones ability to use that which is growing. There is very little that is more enjoyed by friends and family than giving them a tub of homemade Basil pesto from one’s own Garden. It is surprisingly easy, healthful and delicious, and can be kept in the freezer for more than a year. They remove it from the freezer, take out a few lumps to add to their pasta or lasagna, and put it back to be drawn out again when a quick and savory something is needed. They will think of you every time they eat it, and you have used up the over-abundance of your late-season Basil plantings. Yes, it is labor-intensive, yes it is time consuming, and yet, it is time well-spent, effort used wisely and thoughtfully, and beats a number of other unneeded or unhealthy things we might have hared with friends at the Holidays!

My Credo:

Some keep the Sabbath going to church,

I keep it staying at home,

With a bobolink for a chorister

And an orchard for a Dome.

God’s the noted clergyman

And the sermon is never long,

So instead of going to Heaven at last

I’m going all along.

Emily Dickinson

Subjects to discuss in the Garden section:

Crop Rotation

Good dirt

Herbs – growing tips, uses and preservation/Plot plan sizes per number of people - expectable harvests

Fruit trees, bushes, plants

More to come…