John Valentine

The coatroom at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., doesn’t have video surveillance. It doesn’t need it: One of the safest places in Washington, it’s never had any problems with theft. That’s not to say itand the whole city, in the middle of a mid-Atlantic deep freeze but poised for an exciting springwasn’t busy […]

Tucking in the garden for its long winter nap is all yin. Last week, as the first frost blustered in over our shoulders from the northwest, we pulled up tomato stakes and cages and rolled up hundreds of feet of irrigation hose. All around us, everything looked as it shouldgray and brown, cold and clumpy, […]

The fall colors were stunning last week: Oranges and reds played off of the blue sky, gusting clouds and swaying pines, their rustling and fluttering suggesting a natural symphony. Cue the maples, now the oaks. It’s a shame to have to disturb this autumn ritual. But, fair warning, I’m cranking up my leaf blower these […]

There I was, about to click the one-stop-shopping button for a 5-pound tub of Spike seasoning when a disembodied voice I’d neglected called out, “Why don’t you just go outside?” So I did. Walking out the front door over to the shed, I reflexively started making a list of outdoor things to do … Go […]

Racing the Technicolor sunset to the top of Mount Hollywood, my wife, our oldest daughter and I were total tourists. Hundreds of eager kids and adults had gathered at the mountain’s peak for the Public Star Party on the sprawling front lawn of the Griffith Observatory. As the half moon rose to the south, local […]

When we first found our four-room, wood-stove-heated little house at the end of a rutted, packed clay drive in 1972, the road that led home wasn’t paved. I had an old, faded maroon Volkswagen van with a roll-top roof, a platform bed, a 6-volt battery and what must have been a dozen windows. Going down […]

The bright signs appeared the third week in April, proclaiming “strawberries” in shiny red letters, a matching big arrow pointing up the road, our road. In the old daysor when our kids were smallstrawberry-picking trips offered epic odysseys. Packing coolers of water, floppy hats, extra clothes, favorite plastic buckets, sunscreen, snacks and picnic blankets, we […]

“What about the snake stick?” whispered my wife, leaning over my shoulder. We were huddled together, squeezed into a closet in our garage, peering into the darkness at a baby raccoon staring at us from behind a pair of empty cat food bowls. Early efforts at simply shooing the frightened animal had failed. We had […]

The Better Boys and Big Beefs are doing just fine. You could probably just toss a few German Johnsons out the kitchen window and come back in 72 days to a thriving green and red mountain of homegrown tomatoes. I know those plants will survive; they always do. But each morning, I first look at […]

Sturdy oak limbs, stretching from the forest, reaching for sunlight. Holding for the count. The ebb and flow of waves on the gradual sands of Sunset Beach. In constant rotation. A welcoming foggy dawn campfire haze sunrise at the Coffee Barn at Shakori Hills. Looking like elaborate nocturnal choreography, muddy footprints at a pond’s clay […]