MFMarilee Foster

1. Article · Sep 29, 2026 · Marilee Foster

   This Old House (opens the original)

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   Flowers are the most dramatic plants. Yes, many vegetables lay flattened as the result of a three-day nor’easter, but flowers, with their tattered colors prone, look especially wrecked. Even the mighty sunflowers, rows planted for protection, all tip, roots partially ripped from the muddy earth. Nearly everything that has been planted is now at acute angles to the field. But how quickly this vanquished mess seeks to recover. For as soon as the wind abates and the rain lets up, the stems self-c

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2. Article · Sep 1, 2026 · Marilee Foster

   The Final Phase (opens the original)

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   A lone egret flies slowly up the pond. I’m in a truck, driving along the adjacent headland. We’re moving in the same direction at about the same speed, so I can watch the white bird’s graceful wingbeats and enjoy the small, idyllic scene to its fullest: the black water, the muddy shore. The bird against the gray morning, moving like a point of light, propelled by perfect design into the refuge of contiguous habitat, is reason for rejoicing. Summer comes in phases and, depending on your p

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3. Article · Jul 28, 2026 · Marilee Foster

   The Economics of Beans (opens the original)

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   In order to know beans, you should pick beans. It was late, she was the last customer, and she was not happy about the price of string beans. So then she was not the last customer after all — no sale! I, too, am sensitive to the price of beans, because I raise them and I know that each step in their precarious lives was marked by a modest dollar sign of investment on my part. In my purchase of seed, I support another farm, but after that it’s kind of the wild world of economics: the diesel,

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4. Article · Jul 14, 2026 · Marilee Foster

   Noises Just Beyond (opens the original)

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   I did not expect my first tomato, but there it was. We call the early season tomato-hunting time, for the way you must crouch and yet swiftly survey the long rows, keen for the slightest glow of color: a ripe one deep in the forest that is their shady vine. Picking tomatoes and eating tomatoes are my vice and obsession. And so the first of each season carries exaggerated significance — and thus, with the first bite, there is trepidation. What I write about is respite from what I think about: a

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