Come to the Dark Side In gardening, as in life, a little quirkiness is a good thing. I love visiting a well planned French garden where everything is laid out in geometric perfection, but even as a spectator they make me nervous. There’s way too much pressure to keep things a certain height, shape, and…
Unraveling Traveling Ever have one of your super powers turn around and bite you in the tush? I’ve always been good at sizing up a space and figuring out how to fill it without wasting a square inch. In the past this has served me well when it comes to loading a dishwasher, packing a…
Some Like it Hot, Me Not Yesterday it was June, today it’s August. For the life of me I don’t know why it always takes me by surprise, but every summer it arrives on my doorstep like a family of out of town visitors that I insisted drop in for a visit at a…
Outside Me reading a self improvement article is similar to when I’m rooting through my sparse pantry at dinnertime. I start with great optimism, study each possibility carefully, then hit speed dial for DoorDash after mentally rejecting the amount of effort it takes to combine item A with items C, D and Z to…
Getting the Blues After the last issue of IORVA we received a request for an article on how to attract bluebirds. Happy to oblige, but attracting bluebirds is like dating. You can do your best to attract someone, but it all comes down to luck and chemistry. Bluebirds, like lonely hearts, are complicated critters. …
Painting a Wall As much as I look forward to April’s arrival, it is a month of many moods. Warm one day, chance of frost the next, clear and beautiful, quickly followed by days of rain. If the weather puts your outside plans on hold, you can tackle a decorating project that will…
Crawl into Cozy I’ve always had an adversarial relationship with February. Nothing personal, it’s just in the way. I’m one of those optimists that thinks March is a Spring month, and if February would just kindly step out of line, the rest of us could get right to the budding flowers and warm…
The Yolks on You My favorite time of the day is when I get home, pour a glass of wine, and let my chickens run loose in the yard. Poultry in motion. How did this city-slicker turned chicken-wrangler get her start you ask? Well stranger, pull up a straw bale, let me pour you a…
Get a Move On Ever get some advice, and while helpful, your internal dialog is snarking; “Easy for you to say Buddy, you should try it yourself sometime.” Or when someone, let’s hypothetically say a real estate agent, suggests your closets should be thinned down to about 25% of what’s currently jammed in there, you’re…
Eat Your Heart Out With Valentine’s Day coming up, nothing says love like a gift of good meat. (Ok perv, get that thought out of your head, this is a family newsletter.) I’m talking about a fine cut of grass fed Angus Beef grown on a farm in the lovely Shenandoah Valley. My friend Libby…
