A friend recently posted a picture on social media of his one and only zinnia bloom — after dozens of 2021 seeds only one flower was able to produce a strong pink bloom…in October.

I am not sure if you’ve seen them – those electric bikes that some people have taken to using. I have to say that I have turned my nose up at these new-fangled electric means of transportation; that’s not really cycling.

WINCHESTER — When Crystal Pruitt’s brother was murdered 11 months ago, her crippling grief was compounded by an inability to find people locally who could relate to her loss and help her heal.

When I was a little girl (very little! Long before I could do math!) I thought that in two years I would be the same age as my sister who was two years older than me (not really understanding that she too would age). You see: my sister had all the privileges that age could provide; she got t…

Jacqueline Stevens was working in the NICU at Valley Health in Winchester when she realized a love for helping new moms bond with their babies.

Most people who know me, know I am definitely the cheapest — OK — thriftiest - person to walk on the planet. Scrooge and I have much in common.

The rain of the last few weeks has restored some of the green to county lawns and fields and given a new life to struggling vegetation. It’s so wonderful to see my coleus with their rainbow-colored leaves standing straight, instead of bending over the edge of the flowerpot, defeated and dehy…

To celebrate his parents’ 60th wedding anniversary on Sept. 9, Keith Provost presented his parents with a congratulatory letter from the White House signed by President Joe Biden.

I am not a big television fan -- in fact, I am not really sure how to work our “smart TV,” and usually have to call for help when trying to navigate the buttons. In all honesty, most of the time, I don’t want to watch the television as it appears television conversation is the least respectf…

Fall is almost here, and as area residents prepare their homes for cooler nights and crisper days, local designers are seeing a big shift back to the basics.

The end of summer has officially arrived -—the end of the annual fair. For some reason, the final night of the fair has always seemed as if it was the final day of summer. It’s as if the light of summer has been switched off, and now fall will creep into the Valley, painting leaves an autumn…

Like many other people who live in Shenandoah County, I like to start and end my summer days watching for the hummingbirds who flit and whip around our feeders and through the yard. Their appearance in May heralds the beginning of the season - always a much-anticipated event in my house.

I remember the first time I had a self-cleaning oven. Gosh, what an invention! I remember before I had the self-cleaning oven: the elbow-length plastic gloves the thickness of a heavy-duty sleeping bag, the chemical smells that peeled paint from the walls, and the endless scrubbing at awkwar…

What’s the perfect back-to-school snack? One that’s healthy enough that if your kids get full and won’t eat dinner, it doesn’t matter.

Woodstock resident Lars Hasseler ran his first ultramarathon earlier this month, coming in ninth out of 99 runners.

So, the old house is nearly rebuilt. Oops, I mean repainted – and rebuilt.

WINCHESTER — Just a few months after the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to close its doors forever, the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum has bounced back and is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Along with a recipe book, music and tomato-themed products, visitors to downtown’s Turner Pavilion Saturday celebrated “all things tomato” with a tomato judging contest at the newly resurrected TomatoFest

The Mount Jackson/New Market Little League under 12 girls’ softball team might not have gone to Tokyo, but the team of 11 young ladies has earned themselves their very own bronze — from Coeburn, Virginia, a town of 2,500 people — not exactly a city of 13 million like Tokyo, Japan, where athl…

I think I am turning into my grandmother. Oh, that’s not such a bad thing as my grandmother Golladay was a hard-working kind woman — stern but good. Yes….my older brother Bill and my cousins remind me often that I am just as bossy as my grandmother, god rest her soul. So, I get that part of …

I know it’s an eyesore right now — my wonderful old Main Street house in Toms Brook. The 100-year-old structure looks like it has caught some type of horrible summer “splotch disease” — huge white spots oozing from various spots and corners on its wooden frame.

Area residents who are ready to gather for social activities following a difficult, stressful year brought on by COVID-19 are starting to sign up for in-person recreational classes and trips as programs resume at area parks and recreation departments.

Before we moved to Toms Brook, we lived in the country, Amissville — in Rappahannock County. It’s not even a town — just a place on the map: down the dirt road, away from traffic, a pond in the back yard, with horses in the field next to the house. It was the country.

You know — it’s almost the Fourth of July. This day brings back a thousand memories. No ….I was not there when Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star Spangled Banne” or there when the Liberty Bell rang out its tones, but the Fourth of July means a great deal because I have traveled to so many pla…

Fireworks safety is a must, and with the 4th of July coming up Sunday, pyrotechnics expert Maziar Momeni, of Front Royal, recommends safety first.

When Connie Broy, of Toms Brook, started making a quilt back in the year 2000, she never imagined the long history it would have, including being one of 13 featured in the 2022 wall calendar of the American Quilter’s Society.

As a parent, I love my boys. My husband and I have two admirable young men who are quite successful in their own right.

Those looking for some gardening inspiration this year might want to check out the Northern Shenandoah Valley Master Gardener Association’s first-ever Gardening in the Valley Tour on Saturday.  

I have spent the last decade or longer helping people learn how to use this bizarre form of communication we call English. We take our language for granted  — we just say the things we’ve said for years without a thought to what the words mean.

This is a report on the past six months of columns. I have to report because it’s only appropriate to respond to people who have responded to my columns.

I love a mystery. A good mystery is where the imagination can run wild — the who-done-it, where, and when scenario keeps me turning the page of the novel or sitting up way after the hour that I should be in bed.

It’s really difficult to keep a house project secret when you live on Main Street USA. That’s what living on Main Street in Toms Brook is like — the whole world knows what we are doing before we are doing it.

Don’t you just love stuff? Well, I do — even have been accused of being a hoarder. I have an attic full of keepsake stuff…like newspapers. No, not ones I wrote it. These are newspapers with headlines for perpetuity: Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, Elvis’s last performance, 9-11, Walter Peyton’…

The year-long pandemic of 2020 brought unexpected changes to everyone’s calendar. Sporting events were canceled. Stores closed. Weddings were postponed or venues changed; guest lists pared down to immediate wedding parties. Graduations were conducted within computer screens or on rotating sc…

Oh no! They are back…the noisy, flying, molting, eating, red bug-eyed beasts that come out of the ground every 17 years to terrorize people who live quiet lives on roads that hum with incessant noises. I think I would rather have Arnold Schwarzenegger at my door telling me “I’ll be back.”

Route 11, the Old Valley Pike, is one of the oldest roads in the United States; from Slidell, Louisiana, to Rouses Point, New York, stopping at the edge of Lake Champlain, the road was a path Native Americans cut along the eastern part of the Western Hemisphere. Traveling from New Market to …

I love a clothesline – you know….those two or three lines stretched between two poles in the back yard. I love the feel of the towels – crisp and rough – right off the line. I only want my sheets fresh from the clothesline – especially in the early spring when the wind whips that clean smell…

Adding delicious, new flavors to your home-cooked meals this spring may be easier than you think. A secret ingredient like cooking wine is a simple way to add a boost of flavor to all kinds of recipes.

Some of the best memories throughout life stick with you forever as you play them over and over in your head and smile, thinking fondly of those times.

Time available to cook, your family's preferred dishes, ingredients you have in the pantry - there are plenty of considerations that may limit your options for an at-home menu. Add in a gluten allergy, or simply a desire to avoid it, and it may feel impossible to appease everyone.

LAKE FREDERICK — An encyclopedia entry on hemophilia gave a young George Stone a bleak picture of what he could expect from life.

WINCHESTER — Today we journey to the summer of 2004, when we watched the final episode of “Friends” and slowly lost our minds due to the incessant drone of billions of Brood X cicadas.

TIMBERVILLE — Taxidermy is not a profession for the faint of heart. But for Mark Poirot, it’s no different than any other type of art.