Caption: "my garden kicks ass"

Anne Says: "Before I moved to New Mexico I gave away my pruning shears. I was determined to let the desert be the desert. But it doesn’t work that way. Once you’ve disturbed the desert by building on it, and by walking and playing around your house with your dogs, it will never be the desert again. You either live surrounded by dust, tumbleweeds, and goat’s heads (if you’ve never stepped on a goat’s head before you’re in for a treat) or you make a garden. As I was gluing the words onto this image for the first time, an employee’s son, who was just starting to read, walked up behind me and read “my… garden… kicks… ANNE!!!”

I’m back in Maine, enjoying my first New England spring in 12 years. I did love the New Mexico spring – the sage changing subtly from yellow-green to blue-green, the tiny wildflowers all but hidden in the scrub – and I will be sad to miss the explosion of color in June, when the cholla cactus transform into “rose gardens.” But what a pleasure it is to stroll around my new yard and see green poking up everywhere! My Maine garden is clearly going to kick some major ass."