My great Aunt died recently. In the “funeral pending” section of the paper was her name and age, right next to a teenager’s. It hardly seems fair. It is certainly hard to understand, these two listed side by side, and the juxtaposition of the numbers, and the years spent on earth, seemed poignant to me. [...]

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden…But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.” —Thomas Jefferson to Charles W. Peale, August 20, 1811. * Twenty-six years ago, with that tendril of green hope that sprouts in the [...]