What with all the rain and warm nights this week, my walk around the lake this morning was filled with turtle sightings. Most were safely swimming around the marshes, or sunning on a slimy rock. But one dummy was sitting right on the double-yellow line in the center of the road. Who knows how long […]

We picked up our first share of produce at the Fulton Street Farmer’s Market this week:
• 2 bunches scallions
• 1 head red leaf lettuce
• 1 head bok choy
• 1 head some leafy green with a fancy Italian name
It was fun to meet our new farmers, and see who else was there. But the 5:00 traffic […]

With above-average snow this winter, and no school all week for Winter Break, I decided to embrace our cold habitat and build a snow fort with the boys. The plan was to use all the extra driveway snow to build snow steps up to the playscape. The wall of snow would also create a little […]

“I’m Jim,” says the guy standing next to me, pulling his goggles onto his head and leaning against the wall. “It’s a tough workout, toughest your first day,” he reassures me in a tone that makes me realize that he knows.

The trail is steep and winding through the woods. I ascend the first hill out of breath, pouring sweat, miles deep into a phenomenal run. As I start heading down slope pain shoots from my hips down my legs, so I shorten my stride, slowing down, trying to run through it.

Here we are in the New Year. The beginning. A chance to start anew. The first day of the rest of life. OK, that is perhaps a little dramatic, but I do like the idea that all of the ick in my life– physical, mental, emotional, financial –are a thing of the […]

Winter has historically been my favorite time of year, but between the on-again-off-again snow, slush, and springtime phases of what seems like a season in crisis, it is beginning to fall in the ranks. There is not enough snow to ski in town, but just enough to twist an ankle running trails.

Its 1996 and I am working in a little hole in the wall nursery in San Francisco. One day this really beautiful gardener - a 5 foot tall blonde Irish American girl with a beret and army cammo pants who runs a business called (appropriately) Hummingbird Gardens - pulls up in front of our front gate in a little Toyota pickup truck, the back end of which is loaded with ginger plants that she’s ripped out of someone’s back yard.

I grew up in the South. Winter, to me, was very similar to a carnival. It is short lived and fun while it lasted. Just when you start to get tired of it, it goes away! Snow days were fantastic.

One of the best aspects of being in the backcountry is that you can get dirty. I have gone 27 days without taking a shower.