ITEM: We are officially members of the Woodlawn community garden. If that is even its name. There is no sign, no contact information, nothing formal about it at all, so getting in was a matter of stalking to find anyone who might be willing to part with a phone number. Seems it’s a loose affiliation [...] read more

We left 5 days ago in early spring weather, but arrived home late today, the first day of spring, to find the season nearly passed us by. At 84 degrees, this is the 7th straight day of at or over record temps in Chicago. The same is forecast for tomorrow. No one wants to contemplate [...] read more

…to indoctrinate our 10-month-old into the cult of gardening? Besides introducing him to the fun of playing in the dirt (once he gets past the urge to eat it), I can’t wait to get him crap like this: And this: But I kind of want this for myself. It would make the fairies so happy. [...] read more

How did I miss this? A blog just for trees. It’s an aggregator, spreading the tree love. Kinda wonder why they didn’t name it Silva rerum. If you love all things tree, go read, and Submit your posts, videos, and photos, too. Filed under: the trees Tagged: the trees read more

…am I the only one who sees what’s going on? Filed under: music I love Tagged: DeVotchka, music I love read more

Many of us use the appearance of flowers in the landscape to signal seasons. Here’s Jun Gao doing interesting work with flowers and photography to mark time. I’ve been tired of straight-ahead pictures of plants, my own especially. Though his time-lapse images, some taken over many days, look aged and worn, they feel fresh. Floral [...] read more

I was pretty excited to find out that Cornell Plantations used my images for the front and back of their new visitor map. These were taken on a pristine spring day among the blooming crabapples, when my only job was to be outside exploring beauty. I’ll take that job any time. Filed under: garden, good [...] read more

Not writing on colony collapse or honey spinning, just laughing. Filed under: Happy Monday Tagged: bees, Happy Monday read more

By Paul Octavious, Chicago photographer and designer Filed under: inspiration Tagged: Chicago, inspiration, snow, winter read more

Better news for elephants today, from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. When we were in Nairobi, we visited the elephant orphanage at Sheldrick, an incredible day. The mama and baby elephants in this video are at their preserve in East Tsavo. The orphans were rescued as babies when their mothers are killed, almost always by poachers. [...] read more