Sky

March 19, 2012 Lured west by the mystery of one of America’s lesser known national parks, we packed broad-brimmed hats, sunscreen, and several gallons of water in the trunk and left behind the crowds of SXSW last Wednesday, driving for 8 hours through increasingly open country to Big Bend. Traveling ...

August 30, 2011 A chilly, misty, 6 a.m. ferry ride across the Rosario Strait late last month spirited me and my family from Anacortes, north of bustling Seattle, to charming Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, part of the archipelago known as the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Easily ...

January 01, 2011 The New Year’s ball has dropped. 2011 is a clean slate. I never bother with resolutions, in the garden or otherwise, but I do get antsy for a new project at this time of year. Pleasant temperatures, no mosquitoes, and a tamed and friendly Death Star (i.e., ...

January 01, 2011 The New Year’s ball has dropped. 2011 is a clean slate. I never bother with resolutions, in the garden or otherwise, but I do get antsy for a new project at this time of year. Pleasant temperatures, no mosquitoes, and a tamed and friendly Death Star (i.e., ...

March 30, 2010 Thanks to daylight saving time, I’ve been able to work in the garden after dinner. But I’m finding it hard to get anything done when the light gets caught in the new green leaves on the live oaks (Quercus fusiformis) and the Texas persimmon (Diospyros texana) below ...

March 19, 2010 Midway in our recent road trip through the Sunshine State, we spontaneously decided to visit the Florida Keys, a series of islands extending into the Gulf of Mexico for 127 miles, traversable via the Overseas Highway and ending in Key West, the southernmost point in the continental ...

February 23, 2010 Fat, fluffy snowflakes have quieted the garden and outlined the trees. After our super hot summer, lengthy drought, and record cold temperatures over the past year, I don’t know why this surprises me. But it does. According to Mark Lisheron at Statesman.com, it has snowed in Austin ...

July 12, 2009 Our summer vacation this year is happening a lot closer to home than the Magical History Tour of last summer. Specifically, the back-yard pool. But while in Houston this weekend, visiting my sister and her family, we took a day trip to Galveston to give the kids ...

March 03, 2009 A spectacular sunset yesterday colored the sky lemon and tangerine and silhouetted the live oaks in our back yard. What a beautiful beginning for the month of March. All material © 2006-2009 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited ...

February 14, 2008 I drove up to Dallas yesterday for a landscape design class at the Dallas Arboretum. Just outside of the city, I stopped to take a few pictures of the sun rising big and orange over frosty fields and misty ponds. Mother Nature’s designs often can’t be beat ...

July 13, 2007 Masai mother and child The friendliness of the people we met in Tanzania transcended language barriers and cultural differences. Admittedly, we were sheltered from meeting people on the street, due to the fact that we were part of a large tour group, and most of our interactions ...

February 05, 2007 Looking west from my front porch two nights ago, I noticed a beautiful sunset behind a filigree of bare trees. Yesterday I enjoyed perfect gardening weather—about 65 degrees, sunny, no wind. I dug in the front garden all day, tearing out a perfectly good sapling redbud and ...

December 31, 2006 Ridge view at Big Bend. Photo by Dave and Shelley. Over Christmas, my friends Shelley and Dave and their daughter drove 10 hours to Big Bend National Park, located in remote southwest Texas and tucked into a wide curve of the Rio Grande. Four hundred and seventy-four ...

December 31, 2006 Ridge view at Big Bend. Photo by Dave and Shelley. Over Christmas, my friends Shelley and Dave and their daughter drove 10 hours to Big Bend National Park, located in remote southwest Texas and tucked into a wide curve of the Rio Grande. Four hundred and seventy-four ...

May 22, 2006 Bill of Prairie Point pointed out that the sphinx moth in my previous post looks like a prop plane. Speaking of propellers, this military helicopter (a Chinook?) just buzzed our house while I was in the garden this morning. A National Guard camp is located less than ...