Sun shining through new spring leaves in an Appalachian mountain forest

Until moving to the mountains of northeast Tennessee, I have never lived anyplace where nature is so closely tied to the calendar. […]

I am named for my father’s sister, Ruth Happel Smiley, who for most of her life worked on the gardens at Mohonk […]

This honeybee is flying between blooms of an especially profuse flowering trumpet creeper vine. Invasive outside of its range, even here in […]

This water drop reflects me and the red spikes of this decorative grass dangling like an ornament from its flower spire.