Veteran journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall reports from the scene on books, writing . . . and life as she knows it.
One of the abutilons we planted last fall — still drenched from last night’s watering. Photo by BF Newhall
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
It’s spring in our hilly neighborhood. Our magnolia tree is finishing up its annual blast of pink and white. But the daffodils are still going strong on the hillsides. And so are the camellias, [Read more...]
A camellia -- one of the dozens that hit the pavement today.
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
Jerome, that famously abstemious fourth- and fifth-century scholar and saint, is said to have kept a human skull on his desk to remind him of his mortality.
Those of us with gardens don’t need a skull. We’ve got stuff dying on us every day. [Read more...]
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
When I think of March, I think of mud. Half frozen, slurpy, messy, car-stuck-in-the-road mud.
That’s because I grew up in Michigan, where March is the most unnerving month of the year. One day it’s warmish and the world smells like spring. The next day the thermometer drops, it’s winter again and odors vanish in the cold. [Read more...]
