The shrinking economy and the sound of crashing finances are heard everywhere; strangely reminiscent of other financial failures and the difficulties of past generations. We have our own struggles… a small business in a challenging economy… a daughter in college and a son just finished. As with almost all families these days, we watch every dollar and are careful of how we spend. But sometimes you just have to live. And recently, my wife taking off to the cape with some friends for a spring getaway, I put two bills on the counter for her because I knew she was watching every dollar. One was a hundred dollar bill and one was a fifty. This is a nice neat way to have $ 150.00. Two bills. Not a fortune by any means, but some spending money. Fun money.

Not so fast. Enter Sandy. (more…)

With so many things in a frenzy of bloom it’s not hard to feel the excitement of spring and the promise of warmer weather and all that it brings. Despite the incessant blight that has diminished our dogwood trees (Cornus), it’s hard not to notice their beautiful bloom, even on trees that seem noticeably stressed. There’s something particularly nice about the horizontal petals of the bloom that drink up the sunlight and carry a piece of the morning through the entire day. (more…)