"When you really pay attention, everything is your teacher."

~Ezra Bayda

"I am so enmeshed in all of earth’s support systems, my life so interconnected with every other animal, plant, and person that, taking the overview, I am not just 'I.' I am one with the sun and the raindrops falling gently now outside my window. I am one with the soil and the worm. I am one with the seed and the flower.

"I am part of every single person I love — and they are a part of me. And more than that, I am one with the people who drive me crazy and mirror the facets of myself I would prefer to keep hidden forever, thank you very much.

"We are all part of one mysterious Being, all living and learning and loving in a beautiful, wild tangle."

~Meredith Wickham

(from tangle, August 2009)

Upstate South Carolina, in USDA Hardiness Zone 7(b) (average annual low temperatures between 5°and 10° F/-15° to -12.2° C) and in AHS Plant Heat Zone 8 (90 to 120 days per year above 86° F/30° C). We get a lot of rain, nearly 50 inches (127 cm) per year in a typical year -- although lately we've been plagued by drought. This region of the United States is considered subtropical.

Because I've gotten so many requests to know, here it is: I use a Sony Cybershot DSC T-9 that's about four years old -- and I love it! It's a point-&-shoot, and I'm still getting to know its quirks, but it has definitely convinced me that, contrary to popular opinion, you do not have to spend upwards of a thousand dollars on a DSLR to get beautiful pictures. Technically, this is F.'s camera. But when he suggested I begin a blog in August 2009, he also made the mistake of loaning me his camera. I've hardly let go of it since.