tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12760578171763824472011-11-27T15:48:28.808-08:00Growing thoughts on my interwoven world of flower farming and creative writing.Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.comBlogger371100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-76642962909504985652011-07-21T12:55:00.000-07:002011-07-21T20:51:45.925-07:00

My post-bee attack strategy is to be more aware in the garden. . . It is not a good idea to weed in the evening, after the sun has gone down, but even so, I should've heard the buzzing as the bees went in and out of that hole in the ground. I've been back to the scene of the attack several times, and they are easy to see and hear as they go about their business. I must've been in some kind of Zen

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-31393621932877651412011-07-02T15:33:00.001-07:002011-07-02T19:50:02.470-07:00

This past week I was weeding in the flower garden one lovely evening, when I heard a little buzz in my ear. I brushed it away, as I would any annoyance, but then numerous stings on my body occurred. My first thought was red ants, but then I saw it was bees. Down my shirt, down my jeans. A planned attack! I must've plunged my weeding tool into their nest in the ground, or damn near it. . . I just

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-69704825956355367512011-06-20T13:10:00.000-07:002011-06-20T13:29:21.149-07:00

My blogs have been few and far between this past year, but I vow to post more regularly. . . This spring we broke new ground on the flower farm. Fresh earth for happier flowers. But we are planting more and more native perennials so that we don't have to upturn/upset the earth every year. . .Let the flowers and insects and birds do what they do to disseminate the seed. . . Everything seems

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-17528929685054116452011-02-03T07:27:00.000-08:002011-02-03T09:17:23.237-08:00

The garden in white, lying in wait, like a bride preparing for her wedding day,

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-62214232972350195242011-01-06T15:26:00.000-08:002011-01-06T16:45:46.525-08:00

It is amazing to me that my last blog was back in April. Although not that amazing, when I think of how busy we were on the flower farm this past season. On top of all the weddings we provided and designed flowers for, our herbal body products really took off. So we were either in the field or kitchen all season long, planting, designing and creating--which I believe we do every day in our minds

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-50726841583523993652010-06-22T14:48:00.000-07:002010-06-22T14:57:23.060-07:00

Or is it? I have blogged about this before. About the ability of some weeds to so closely imitate the actual flower. This is a picture of False Queen's Lace (Ammi majus), which is the cultivated variety of the native Queen Anne's Lace, which some people refer to as the true weed. . . But mixed in here is False, False Queen Anne's Lace--a weed that resembles False Queen Anne's Lace. Can you tell

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-52756205716556622052010-04-26T09:16:00.000-07:002010-04-26T18:39:40.428-07:00

April is tulip time here on the flower farm. We dig thousands of tulips that we planted in the fall, bulb in all, and store them in our shed until market day. This year they were taller than ever--maybe it was all that snow that blanketed them this winter. . . The flowers bend and sway on their stems like graceful ballerinas performing their spring dance. It makes me smile to think of so many of

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-71303713978549578452010-01-10T18:21:00.001-08:002010-04-26T09:43:21.456-07:00

I have always loved the beach during the off-season. The serenity, the vastness, the ability to retrace my lone footprints in the sand. But I most love it when it snows, the white powder drifting across the sand, melting into the sea. It is so lovely, and, yet, seems so out of place; and it is this feeling of displacement that I so identify with. As a writer, I am a drifter. And, yes, the flower

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-24178278616639369172009-12-22T15:07:00.000-08:002009-12-22T16:32:01.706-08:00

My father’s mother, my greatest inspiration, passed away on December 8th at age 91. So this season has been one of introspection and reflection for both Don and me. I’ve been thinking a lot about her life and what it was that made her so very special. She was definitely the hardest worker I have ever known, running a dairy farm with my grandfather, outside of Scranton, PA for over 50 years, and

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-3961143547773162032009-12-03T12:39:00.000-08:002009-12-03T12:52:43.839-08:00

Today I did something that I've been putting off for awhile: I gathered up the volumes of notepads and notecards and journals and audio tapes that constitute my novel in the making, and packed them all away in a huge plastic tub upstairs. This does not mean that I've given up on getting my novel published--I just needed to clear the way for the new. I am now working on a short story cycle set

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-17180472968950839772009-11-12T10:10:00.000-08:002009-11-12T10:30:03.136-08:00

It is that time of year to cover the flower beds, to put them to rest under a warm blanket of straw, which our black kitty Neil thinks is just for him. W call Neil "the butler" as he is always in the driveway, waiting to park your car, then greet you and give you the garden tour. He is also known as "walky talky," as he is our most vocal cat with a perfect "meeeeow."

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-59615990127318288072009-10-20T07:53:00.000-07:002009-10-20T11:58:44.350-07:00

The flowers are at their most vibrant this time of year--the deep velvet purple of the salvias, the dark wine burgundy of the dahlias, the pink, phosphorescent glow of the celosias. . . Part of the magnificent symphony of color before winter closes in. I could never live where this rush of color was always upon me, somewhere like Fiji or Mauii--it would spoil me, maybe even desensitize me. . . I

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-53640686292474775472009-10-05T14:07:00.001-07:002009-10-05T14:17:13.669-07:00

This is a lovely flower, native to the eastern shore of MD: Eupatorium perfoliatum, 'Boneset'. We are making a transition to cultivated natives here on our flower farm, not that we have never used native flowers before. When we first started out, ten years ago, I would send Don out to gather flowers in abandoned fields, or along the roadside (where he had to explain what he was doing to more

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-33259350974668455642009-09-30T09:41:00.000-07:002009-09-30T11:18:32.872-07:00

This is our garden truck that, you can see, hasn't been used in a while for gardening. When my husband brought it home many years ago, it was love at first sight for me. Look at that torquoise color! And such a big expressive face! What personality! And, now, in its ripe old age, it has become a veritable work of living Art--a lovely vine winding its way through the windows, over the roof and

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-7665827674296530232009-09-21T19:35:00.000-07:002009-09-21T19:48:19.658-07:00

Good news from an e-mail last week--a story of mine has been accepted by The Main Street Rag, a literary journal out of N. Carolina. You'd think I would've been elated, but it was met with mixed feelings at first, as I was just about ready to tear into the piece again, make it better. . . But then I realized, I had set it free; I had felt it was strong and good enough to go out into the world .

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-85313494925500786362009-09-03T21:08:00.000-07:002009-09-03T21:20:07.996-07:00

You can see who's claimed my latest treasure--twenty-five bucks from an antique store here in Galena. It's not sturdy enough for most humans, but will do just fine for my felines. . .

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-65916004775225807932009-08-24T18:03:00.001-07:002009-08-24T21:39:00.035-07:00

This is a month I've gradually come to love here on the eastern shore of MD. It is so thick with heat, so teeming with life that one is forced to slow down, to listen. When the nights finally cool down at the end of this month, and the windows can be opened, there is nothing so amazing as the symphony of bugs in the evening. They give everything they have, and I am reminded of the orchestra that

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-6527470081777939952009-08-10T08:38:00.000-07:002009-08-11T09:39:56.247-07:00

I am Ben Ames, Aunt Lisa’s nephew. The boy on the left is me. I am 10 years old. I live in Catonsville, Maryland, near Baltimore. Aunt Lisa is inviting me and my two sisters, Ella (7), and Josie (4), over to her flower farm. My mom, Nicki Ames, is my Aunt Lisa’s sister, and so we get to sleepover at her house for a few days in August. We’re going to be here for three nights, and so we always do

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-79181692055036338182009-08-06T21:08:00.000-07:002009-08-06T21:17:28.144-07:00

Look closely to see that amazing colorful worm attached to the fennel. I wear my reading glasses now when I harvest, the bugs so closely mirroring the flowers, holding on for dear life. It's what we see when we look closely that is so amazing, that takes our breath away. So much missed in this precious life as we rush through our days. I remember a writing mentor at VT College once said to me,

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-55808890350551379092009-08-03T15:53:00.000-07:002009-09-18T11:44:27.704-07:00

Ordinary PointShe was a typical younggirl, it said in the paper,who loved music anddancing, but her lovefor the Lord wasunusual for someoneher age, a waketossing her bodyfrom a power boatinto the river wheremy husband and Inow sail.Surely, then, she isin heaven, with her Savior;surely, then, we haveno right to grieve.But it is hard not to noticethe heavier cadence in themovement of the river,

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-63152772106281379072009-07-24T14:20:00.000-07:002009-07-25T19:03:12.167-07:00

Last week I attended The Gathering literary conference in La Plume, PA. It was an amazing four days of lectures, workshops, wine receptions and delicous food. I met wonderful people and was inspired, humbled and awed by the talks of Greg Maguire (author of Wicked); poet Nancy Willard; Loung Ung, who wrote the memoir First They Killed My Father, from a chilling five-year-old perspective of her

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-32614735274750697422009-07-14T10:02:00.000-07:002009-07-19T20:23:23.751-07:00

I am dedicating part of this summer to finding treasures to add to my flower garden. Last Wednesday I went to the auction in Crumpton Md and found this lovely brass table topped with shards of blue glass. When the sun shines it sparkles like bits of saphire--and only for ten bucks. It truly is the little things in life that make it all worth it. Lunch with an old friend. A kayak down a still

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-35478965996188463352009-07-02T12:44:00.000-07:002009-07-19T20:26:33.347-07:00

Look closely and you'll see the little frog that has taken up residency in our garage for the summer. He has become the favorite play-toy for our four cats (they are ever so gentle), and he is a wonderful late night companion when I am shuttling flowers back and forth from our kitchen to the flower shed outside. At each passage, he hops along beside me, boldy staring up at me with those big, dark

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-5088651743580919072009-06-13T14:00:00.000-07:002009-07-19T20:29:31.273-07:00

Let me introduce you to Jonathon J.J. Sebastian Cabot Kitty (aka The Fud, short for Fuzzy Wuzzy, which turned into Fudda Wudda). Two years ago it had been five years since Don and I lost our last orange cat, and I was thinking it was time for an orange kitten, much to Don's dissent, as we already had three cats. But I kept seeing this orange kitten in my mind and looked on-line at all the little

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-33127019165240928492009-06-05T15:04:00.000-07:002009-06-05T20:20:48.146-07:00

So I received my first rejection from one of the agents I pitched at the Writing Conference in NYC. She said she read the first 50 pages of my novel and came to this conclusion: young girls in their twenties wouldn't be interested in it, because it was written in present tense and about a young girl in the late eighties, not gritty enough for current days. And women in their forties and fifties

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-11580233858601301642009-05-29T20:48:00.000-07:002009-05-29T21:05:42.721-07:00

Inadvertently (while learning how to post pictures on this blog), I deleted my last post about marketing my novel at the "pitch slam" in NYC. So for those who didn't get a chance to read it, I was stressing over the fact that I had to distill ten years of hard labor into one tiny paragraph. . . And that it would have to be me that made the sale, rather than the novel itself, to the agents. . .

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-22576827236056201352009-05-29T16:13:00.000-07:002009-05-29T16:15:22.223-07:00

It is that time of year in the garden when all the little volunteers start popping up--plants that were self-seeded from last year, blown in the wind and scattered seemingly willy-nilly. Last year, after the daffodils were done, the entire patch became a bed of daisies, all volunteers from nearly half-an-acre away. Easy money one would say, unless the volunteers drown out a more valuable crop,

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-78517728614188916792009-04-11T14:01:00.000-07:002009-05-29T21:07:01.382-07:00

Recently, I had my seven-year-old niece, Ella, over for an artist's weekend. Ella is a budding painter, so I took her to visit a few of my artist friends. First, Evie, who paints portraits and animals and still life, and then, Paula, who is more of a visionary artist. Ella said, "Evie paints what's on the outside, and Paula paints what's on the inside. A sharp observation for a young soul, though

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-23377157566576939142009-03-31T10:34:00.000-07:002009-05-29T21:08:50.661-07:00

Eckhart Tolle in his book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, says that flowers can be looked at as the enlightenment of plants. And can also lead to enlightenment. He tells the story of the Buddha giving a "silent sermon" once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it. After a while one of the monks that was present broke out into a smile--according to legend, that smile was

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-72700683061753455012009-03-16T09:44:00.000-07:002009-05-29T21:09:41.559-07:00

On this cusp of spring, expectation is in the air, the buds quivering on the trees, the green of the bulbs pushing their way through the frozen ground. It is as if we all, on this side of the hemisphere, take a collective breath and hold. . . and it seems to me that a good story elicits this same response. We read with anticipation, expecting a flowering of insight or understanding when we reach

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-77367761198898964302009-03-11T17:33:00.000-07:002009-05-29T21:10:19.648-07:00

The only place I can really run is along the beach, by the sea, its energy invigorating me, saturating every pore of body. It is similar to the energy in the garden, the explosion of life in the middle of the summer, bugs buzzing, flowers humming, swallows soaring, cats hunting. . . How else, but for all this energy I absorb, could I harvest bucket after bucket of flowers every Friday eve? Energy

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-88219991300274136082009-03-09T12:37:00.000-07:002009-05-29T21:11:12.069-07:00

Maybe it's because I went ice-skating every Saturday in February that balance has been so prevalent on my mind. One is so keenly aware of the body when skating, a sweep to the right, a sweep to the left, then that centered, forward glide. In this fast-paced society it is so easy to be knocked off balance, to forget how to breathe, how to truly exist in a balanced, natural state. The buzz of

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-41647817702870178062009-03-03T16:48:00.000-08:002009-05-29T21:12:23.947-07:00

One of the most amazing things I find in the garden are the imposters--the weeds that do their best to look like the real flower in the row or bed. Sometimes they do such a good job I let them be. They may be fakes, but there is something admirable in their struggle for existence--and who are we to say what is a weed anyway? I once had a lady come pick her own flowers on our farm and she took

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-57545190759131858722009-03-02T14:20:00.000-08:002009-05-29T21:13:46.618-07:00

The world blanketed in snow is a clean slate on which to create: cardinals and bluejays came first today, then small, yellow finches. And then the flock of noisy blackbirds that clean out the feeders, but are still part of the design--black on white. Ying Yang. The balance soon regained. Walkways shoveled. Roads cleared. Power restored. But where would we be without the storms? Those storms that

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-64876428032619558332009-02-28T13:56:00.000-08:002009-05-29T21:14:53.903-07:00

A friend of mine recently retired early from her full-time job and said it felt as if she were floating that day--not just from sheer joy, but she was feeling less grounded, her routine altered. Change is good they say, but it can feel as if we've been uprooted, re-potted, even with the most careful of planning. When we dig up herbs or perennials, extricate their roots, then transfer them to a

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-22767791235500375042009-02-26T08:21:00.000-08:002009-05-29T21:16:08.635-07:00

In a recent article in Poets and Writers an editor uses the word 'necessary' as one of his criteria for choosing a book to publish. He was using it in the sense of originality, or possessing that quality that will increase sales by word-of-mouth, but it is still such a vague, subjective word. Perhaps 'spark' is a better word. Or 'resonance.' But 'necessary?' Every year, during this time, my

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1276057817176382447.post-84572328874549670942009-02-24T16:20:00.000-08:002009-05-29T21:17:41.135-07:00

I have always been a person in need of the seasons--to grow wild, then settle, then incubate for the new birth. My visit to Maui left me wondering how one can live in paradise. . . how one can remain in one phase of life, be it heavenly, for an extended or eternal phase. For me, I know it wouldn't take long for ennui to set in. . . I would like to experience a long, harsh Russian winter to

Lisa Lynn Biggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00287865837736833098noreply@blogger.com2