My heart has been so full of the sweet beauty of the spring lately – all the flowers and sweet smells, and the still cool milky nights under the waxing moon, with the first little fireflies winking in the dark places under the oak trees, looking bright but lonely in the big night. O sweet…
Winter and Spring Garden 2022 (Goodbye Garden)
I have also very much enjoyed the fall/winter/spring garden up until the point that it stopped being really really hot (well into January) and started being really, really cold. Here’s that story… This garden began, as usual, with pigs. They did a great job rooting it up for me. I built it in sections, since…
Just Kidding
The new year started off with a bang this past week. The peach trees decided it was spring, and burst into bloom. The chickens and ducks are leaving eggs lying around everywhere. One of the black hens keeps trying to come inside and lay an egg in the kitchen. And last week we had FIVE…
New Year Sweet Potato Tamales
It has been a very warm and summery winter. I have cosmos blooming in my garden, and ripe cherry tomatoes at Christmas! This is the warmest winter I have experienced as a gardener, and I worry about next year’s pests, with no hard freeze so far. However, I am still enjoying, for the moment, wearing…
Travel Journal : Washington State
I apologize for the silence – I’ve been up to so much lately! In November, Rose and I flew across the country to visit some very dear friends for a week. It was one of those vacations where you don’t sight see much, but you just have tons of fun (and catch up on rest)….
A Small Silence
Thank goodness that fall is here. This summer was such a long, hot, moldy, unhappy struggle. I feel like I lost so many things, and floundered around and failed. There was never enough time or energy to do what I wanted and needed to do, never enough to go around, things breaking, and heaps of…
Summer Harvests
I’ve had several in-person interactions with people lately that have really, really sucked. One of them involved one of my oldest friends, and we have parted ways. It was a long time coming – he never respected me, not since our days together in high school. For so many years he constantly criticized me –…
The Brag Garden
It’s taken me so long to put this post together – I have had a very shaky internet connection lately and the uploading took forever – but here it is at last – and while I was in the process, the garden has changed so much, from the straw-mulched infant garden stage to flourishing and…
Elsa
Although Hurricane Elsa was not much of a hurricane once it reached us, we got a lot of rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain! Three weeks before the official storm, we were also pelted daily with rain, rain, rain. Every day was dark and cloudy, and the sun only occasionally shone silvery white…
A New Herd
The goats have been keeping me busy – we slaughtered the three male bucklings from this spring, and suddenly we have lots of meat and lots of milk. Kefir, yogurt, cheese, too. It is such an abundance as we have not had in several seasons. It feels heady and happy – every meal is a…
New Milk Custard Pie With Mulberries
This post is not timely, unfortunately. A while ago the mulberries were finished fruiting, and the season for new babies is nearly over. But the truth is this post is a difficult one for me to write – because there was trouble this season, and people who don’t live with this kind of thing –…
2021 Spring Garden Tour
I know I have been very quiet here this spring. I didn’t mean to be. I would keep thinking of things I’d like to write down, but then I got so, so busy and picked up by the driving, whirling, greening spring – I couldn’t ever get around to sitting down and writing anything. So…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 