By TAHREE LANE, Toledo Blade

The needle on the color meter tilts toward "low" in midwinter, when wardrobes tend to black and gray, landscapes seem bleached and intake of Vitamin D from sunshine is paltry.

Like most gardeners, Frances Hill-Bolton, a supervisor of adults who have challenging behaviors at the Lucas County (Ohio) Board of Developmental Disabilities, squeezes quality time with her garden in around a busy working schedule. She lives in Toledo.

Here's how she describes her garden life and time:

.It was in the ancient city of Bath, England, and particularly while relaxing in a stone-walled soaking pool in 2006, that Elizabeth Pinky Edens became enchanted with the strength and serenity that can be drawn from stone.

"Before I left England, I loved stone so much," she says. "There's this incredible feeling of peace stone gives you."

TOLEDO, Ohio - When Steve Rathke says, "This has given me signals for years," he's not speaking New Age.

The snug little room with red carpeting and green walls is a page out of a beloved storybook.

It's 2-year-old Annamarie Mack's bedroom, and she and her three brothers have heard "Goodnight Moon" enough to know much of it by heart: "Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight light, and the red balloon ..."

"To talk to someone who does not listen is enough to tense the devil." -- Pearl Bailey

-- A woman who used an online dating service met several men for coffee. She was stunned at how some of them spent a solid hour talking about themselves. Result: No second date. "Conversation," she said wryly, "does not come naturally to everyone." (The woman asked that her name not be used.)

Most wonderful time of the year? Maybe.

Trashiest time of the year? Absolutely.

Boxes, Styrofoam, packaging, wrapping paper, disposable plates, cups and utensils, bottles, cans and food waste -- our trash bins overfloweth.

But there are a zillion ways to raise your green IQ.

He's probably best-known as one of TV's "MASH" doctors -- Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt, a steady presence in the Korean War zone to Alan Alda's mercurial Hawkeye Pierce.

Mike Farrell's eight-year stint on the beloved series was not only a great time in his acting career, it also provided him with prestigious credentials for promoting the humanitarian causes he holds dear.

Moving from Southern California to Findlay, Ohio, four years ago, Allen Beck had a couple of criteria when shopping for an abode: it should be a showcase for his antique furniture, and it should need some, but not too much, work to occupy him while he settled into the community.

These friends start Tuesday morning by scouting out the lay of the land.

Under an autumn sky billowing with grays, they stroll a path in Swan Creek Metropark, near Toledo, Ohio, scanning for a slice of scenery with enough color, shape and inspiration to hold them for three or four hours.