BACK TO THE GARDEN

Starting with a Joni Mitchell lyric always feels like a good idea, whether the garden holds a sea lion on the beach (it does) or a rose. We are stardust We are golden And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden —Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock" Maybe you can see why we call the rock …

with love

An Australian sheep farmer was unable to attend his beloved aunt's funeral because of covid. He managed to get his message through: In this image taken from video, sheep form the shape of a heart in a field in Guyra, northern New South Wales, Australia, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021.Ben Jackson/AP He lured them into that …

pied-à-terre

One of our tenants believes in the "good old days." He is young. He thinks the fifties and sixties and seventies were times of idyllic freedom. I look at his long hair and think: You'd have been beaten half to death living around here in the 60s; you'd have been jailed for what you smoke. …

WHY WE STAYED HOME

Today is my high school reunion, the 50th delayed to year 51, and it is also my elder son's 41st birthday. I will be baking a vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free cake later today. Our family is coming. They've had good reason to stay safe, isolated, and healthy. So that is the best reason for staying …

ONE THING or the OTHER

My 50th high school reunion is coming up in less than a week. It is actually our 51st graduation anniversary, but there was that pandemic. Actually, the pandemic is still raging, and locally it's worse than ever with more cases daily than we saw in a month last year. I live in a tourism destination …

“I was feeding you, Jack.”

There are many healthy-looking purple and orange starfish again! Nine in this photo. The green rounds are anemones folded in against the receded tide. Little pink rounds in the upper left are anenomes too. Ripper: I don't know how well I could stand up under torture. Mandrake: Well of course the answer to that is, boy, …

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

The bottled message was dropped the day before about 15 miles north by a couple celebrating their anniversary. The cork had been pushed through, and the neck was plugged with a foiled candy wrapper. We're sure they would have loved to hear about the finding after a month and from another state, but it made …