Putting down roots

When my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas, the answer I gave resulted in a look of consternation.
"Rocks," I told her.
Is it wrong that the curled lip and the narrowed gaze that I received became one of my favorite moments of the holiday season?
But I had her curiosity going, because she asked why rocks, and I said because I need rocks to create a dry stream bed like we'd seen at Asheville, North Carolina's arboretum, which we had visited on one of our many "honeymoons" in 2008.
Still skeptical, my wife has assured me that I will not get rocks — though it may be appropriate, considering the source.
I've shifted my wishlist to shrubs, and there's no hurry to buy those as a gift because I won't be able to plant them for months.
But I have to say that in 2008 I got everything I could imagine wanting.
Despite nationwide economic turmoil and its repercussions at home in the Blue Ridge, 2008 may well turn out to be my favorite year ever.
Reflecting on events of the past 12 months, I can't help but feel glad to have experienced some momentous personal events and feel positive about the future.
As the year draws to a close and nearly all news agencies, including The Gazette, sum up their top stories, I'm looking forward to the new adventures to come.
Having just completed my Holiday Tour to visit friends and family from North Carolina to Indiana, a round trip encompassing about 1,550 miles, having gathered around the Christmas tree with my generous inlaws for the first time as an "official" family member, having shared some time with my niece and nephew (both still cherubic and angelic but poised on the cusp of becoming "grown up"), renewed relationships and having caught up with friends and family members now spread out nearly from shore to shore and letting them get to know my charming wife, I reveled in the season.
Our flurry of unwrapping gifts proved that my parents came through on my request for camping gear.
So now me and the Mrs. and our dog can enjoy the outdoors in relative style with room enough to stretch out in our new dome tent.
We had planned to explore the depths of the Great Dismal Swamp as part of our honeymoon trip to see Tidewater for the very first time.
While we got to Colonial Williamsburg, it became clear that the 100-plus-degree heat that cropped up while we were there would not be a comfortable hike through a mosquito infested swamp.
The tent will allow us to take more affordable and more frequent trips such as a return to Virginia's coast, as well as the extreme north and south ends of the Blue Ridge Parkway on free weekends and maybe even on to the Shenadoah .
The challenge of climbing Mount Mitchell, the tallest mountain on the East Coast, still beckons. And we also can't wait to pop up the tent at Mount Rogers and hike at the highest park on the highest mountains in Virginia.
I'm already looking forward to getting away and learning more about this wonderful place we live.
On the homefront I'm looking forward to spring and hoping to stay busy.
I got an idea to recreate a successful bit of landscaping - a grouping of barberry, junipers, sedum and other bits - in other places around the yard.
That's obviously where my No. 2 item on my Christmas list comes in.
New plantings will help tie the different parts together and beautify the place, I hope. It will also allow me to take up more lawn and replace it with possible food and shelter for the birds and bugs.
This will continue to solidify my yard's designation as a "certified wildlife habitat" from the National Wildlife Federation — one of my finest non-marriage accomplishments of 2008.
The certification gives me credit for trying to provide the "four basic habitat elements needed for wildlife to thrive: food, water, cover and places to raise young."
It's not too hard to do. Planting butterfly bushes has helped those insects as well as bees get nectar. My new apple trees, too immature to produce fruit yet, have already provided some sustenance for the deer by means of their twigs. Some of the apples are intended to feed wildlife, but the darn greedy critters have to leave the branches on in order to get that done. Letting plants like swamp milkweed grow up around my brush pile gave at least one monarch butterfly a place to reproduce. I found great joy in seeing the yellow, white and black striped caterpillar nibble the milkweed leaves down last summer.
I will work to make the yard even more hospitable in 2009. 
Water sources are a bit of a weak point. Right now, one of them is an overturned garbage can lid filled with rainwater.
This led to my number three gift suggestion to my wife, a birdbath.
One of the handiest possessions that the Mrs. brought into our relationship was her sturdy shovel, which I will use in 2009 to move our small indoor garden outside.
It's my plan to try and recreate some of the "door gardens" full of herbs that I saw in Williamsburg during a different honeymoon and she wants vegetables.
A few nice bell peppers grew in the south facing windows of the basement, and we hope to get even more of a bounty and more variety of veggies in raised beds in the backyard.
There's a nice hillside to the west that gets unobstructed sun from midmorning to nearly sunset. 
My wife and I put down roots in 2008, and we will grow together in 2009.

Making gifts matter

In feeling financially pressed this holiday season but still wanting to benefit worthy causes and charitable groups, I suggested that loved ones consider making making donations to non-profits that work to conserve wild- and wetlands.
Taking an idea from a gift my wife and I received for our wedding, I suggested that my niece and nephew might want to have a tree planted in a national forest in our name.
I figured that would be easy and affordable for those young'uns, it would help more people than just us, and it could divert some money away from consumer goods to something more worthwhile.
Having just dealt with a very worldly, specific and long Christmas gift list sent late by family members and taking about 12 hours in one marathon shopping trip to fulfill the holiday wishes of little girls and boys, I am hoping more people will internalize the idea of more charitable giving — whether during December or all year round.
So I welcomed learning about the website redefiningchristmas.org, an Internet portal designed to connect people with the non-profits and to encourage donations.
Why is it important to boost charitable giving?
The group provides this as an answer on the Web site: "Consider that the amount of money spent on candy alone during the holiday season is greater than the annual budgets of the American Cancer Society, The American Heart Association and Habitat for Humanity combined."
That's both kind of shocking and not surprising at the same time.
Redefining Christmas is not about changing the holiday, but rather reexamining of the spirit of giving.
"It's about changing the way we look at gift giving and receiving," the Web site says. "It's taking money we usually spend on obligatory gifts with little meaning, and creating gifts of charity that give in multiple ways, to the receiver, the giver, and people who truly need."
A lot of information one needs to find good causes and quality organizations — and avoid the worst groups — is available at Redefining Christmas and its partner websites like charitynavigator.org, justgive.org and changingthepresent.org.
With links to 1.5 million organizations, the promoters of Redefining Christmas are confident that most people can find a charitable group that shares their interests.
With a few clicks, potential donors can give to their favorite zoo, projects like studying sustainability of food and fuel farm crops, adopt a snowy owl, protect African ranges for the good of elephants, offset one's carbon footprint, support historic organizations like Colonial Williamsburg and Many others.
But don't go there without first checking out the rating given to the non-profits on Charity Navigator.
I've investigated most of the organizations I've donated to in the past year and have been relieved to see that they've gotten favorable marks, though according to reviewers, some of them need improvement.
It pleased me to see worthy groups like the American Chestnut Foundation getting four out of a possible four stars for its efforts to "restore the American chestnut tree to its native range within the woodlands of the eastern United States using a scientific research and breeding program."
The Web site compares program costs, fundraising costs and use of revenue to rate how efficiently a non-profit will put its donations to use.
Were I to decide to give to outdoor recreation and conservation programs in Cincinnati, for example, I could pull up information about various efforts there.
And Charitable Navigator can show me that the information gathered about the Cincinnati Parks Foundation and the Cincinnati Nature Center.
There I learned that the Cincinnati Parks Foundation works with the city to enhance programs at the 5,000 acres that make up its 150 parks.
"The Foundation: conserves, manages, sustains and enhances parks and public green spaces; helps disseminate information about programs and events in the parks; develops additional private funding for park programs; fosters a greater advocacy for Cincinnati Parks; and provides a forum for community input," the Web site quoted the foundation's own description.
"Cincinnati Parks provide tranquil places where families meet, where children play and where we all relax and breathe easier,"The review gave the parks foundation high marks with four stars and a better score than many similar organizations like the New York Restoration Project and the Central Park Conservancy."
On the other end of the spectrum, Charitable Navigator gave one star to the Cincinnati Nature Center because of its relatively high fundraising and administrative costs and the $100,000-plus salary given to its director.
Redefining Christmas is a gift in itself this busy holiday season.
I'd gladly have family members and friends take advantage of the idea it promotes.
It sure would beat standing in the refunds and exchanges line after opening our presents.