If you examine a rose plant carefully, you will notice that it has compound leaves, meaning that there are either three or five leaflets to each leaf. The three-leaflet leaves appear near the top and bottom of each stem, and the five-leaflet leaves appear in the middle of the stems. In the axel of each leaf is a vegetative bud; however, the buds are more robust and pronounced in the axels of the five-leaflet leaves than in the three-leaflet leaves. You can control the growth of roses by pruning...

With summer on the wane, the sun sets around 7:30 at week’s end, shedding more than a minute of evening sunlight each night. In the morning it’s more of the same, as the sun rises at 6:37 Saturday and almost a minute later each morning. The setting sun reveals three bright objects in its wake: Venus and Mars, and the first-magnitude star Spica, all within five degrees of one another, the field of view of most binoculars. Look to the west immediately after sunset. While closest to...

Watching my German shorthair pointer, Sophie, enter an autumn game field never fails to send a quiver of anticipation through my being. She operates with certainty in an arena where I can only guess at what is about to transpire. A hunting dog is grace, speed, focus and intensity. Humans are acolytes when we accompany a dog into the wild. Pausing as we enter a cover, she will lift her head and taste the air. Instantly she knows the history that has recently transpired unseen before us. The game...

Spooks adopted Upakrik Farm on the evening of All Souls Day in 1996. Our black cocker spaniel Dixie and I both saw a cat in our driveway. I thought it was our cat Pumpkin, a Maine coon cat, but Dixie gave chase and the cat jumped into the shrubbery. When I found Pumpkin in her basket, I concluded we had a visiting cat. Then I heard a yell from my wife. From the window ledge, which is seven-foot six-inches above the ground, a big gray cat with a white chest starring at her. The cat jumped with...