Our two dogs zipped around the yard, noses to the ground, celebrating the warmer temperatures and nearly snow-free backyard. A pair of cardinals sang loudly from the trees as if they were celebrating, too. My dachshunds’ bellies are fairly close to the ground — a little too close to the ...

When I moved to North Dakota, I talked to people about both hardwood trees and softwood trees. They looked very confused. What’s a hardwood? Terminology is important. For good communication, a word should mean the same thing to each person. If it doesn’t, then we’re not actually ...

I’ve been banned from pruning alone. Now this may seem odd, a horticulture agent not being allowed to prune alone. But there are good reasons, and at the time, I was not a horticulture agent. The first time I pruned a tree, I climbed up with my saw and bypass pruners, and I balanced between ...

“What’s the difference between these packets?” my husband asked me after he picked up his cup of coffee. “These are different non-nutritive sweeteners,” I replied as I read the ingredient statement. “Some are sweeter than others.” “Could you pick out a packet for me?” he ...

“I need to check something in the kitchen,” a colleague said. She was working from home. “I hear the smoke alarm,” she added quickly before turning off her Zoom camera and microphone. She sounded remarkably calm. I would have bolted from the room. And I probably would have forgotten ...

The days are getting longer. In the month of February, we gain about an hour and half of daylight from the beginning of the month to the end of the month. February always feels like the turning point of winter to me. I learned a new term, "solar spring," from a news clip, and it occurs from ...