John Valentine

On a cool, clear spring day, my daughters and I were bopping down Durham’s Foster Street in my pickup. We were guzzling water bottles and juice boxes, worn out from another wild morning of the Durham Arts Council parent-toddler dance class. We had nailed “Wheels on the Bus” and “Toes in the Toaster.” Next thing […]

Last weekend, I cut down a cherry tree. I cannot tell a lie. I meant no disrespect, but I had been putting it off for months. We planted the tree, a gift from our neighbors, 25 years ago. It lived a full life, but now it’s simply another part of the biomass festival that stretches […]

The best way to mulch blueberry bushes is on your hands and knees, and that’s where I’ve been. This is the best time for housecleaning in the blueberry patch, too, so that’s why, on early winter mornings, I’ve tucked armfuls of pine straw around old gray trunks and stalks. The ground is cold and crusty, […]

My father was on the faculty of Middlebury College. We lived on fraternity row, just down the hill from the chapel that’s on every college postcard. Every winter day, we walked down the street among giant Disneyesque ice sculptures carved for upcoming carnival weekends. But our own snow creations seemed just as magical and ambitious. […]

Nature is walking her walk, dancing her dance. All we have to do is notice. The fall curtain rises, inviting us in. The view is mundanewe see these changes every day, every yearbut so spectacular. In the exploding forest, the imagination reigns. The recent Hunter’s Full Moon stirred all kinds of nocturnal fantasies in my […]

The mottled orange-and-yellow-feathered chicken sat listless in her nest. Each morning I had to coax her down from her wooden box. She’d make a quick dash to the water and scratch mix, the rest of the flock gathering around her, chattering endlessly. I stuck around long enough to make sure she got something to eat […]

On a recent summer morning, I stumbled upstairs clutching my cup of coffee. In one room, piles of multicolored dollar bills fanned carelessly across a Monopoly board, with water bottles, cereal bowls and layers of clothing covering every other surface. Each bedroom door upstairs was shutyes, another grand summer sleepover. The kitchen was another site-specific […]

We first planted our sprawling blueberry patch more than two decades ago when we were thinking about having kids. In just a few blinks of an eye, the kids were born, learned to talk and learned to walk. And, all along, they loved their mother’s blueberry pie. They grew up, went off to college and […]

Water, rocks, fireflies: They’re the main characters in our June gardening plot. If last week’s torrents of four-plus inches of rain didn’t wreak havoc on your corn, sunflowers and tomatoes, and your mulch didn’t wash away, you’re embracing this season like a long-lost friend. I’m still wishing for sprinkles every few days. This year, I’ve […]

As the sun rises just beyond the tree line, my dog, Penny, and I ease ourselves out the front door and head for the orchard, breaking the stillness inside the house and in the woods just beyond. We’re going on a deer hunt. I’m no hunter, and she’s no hunting dog, either. We’re both in […]