Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
St Swithin's Day St Swithin's day, if thou dost rain, For forty days it will remain; St Swithin's day, if thou be fair, For forty days 'twill rain na mair. I've heard it said that great strawberries hardly ever happen in Vermont. I even know a guy who used to drive to the north border… Continue reading The Daily: 15 July 2023
Having water destroy much of the state you live in —taking not the biblical 40 days to wreak havoc, but something like 8 hours — makes one rather conscious of adaptions that might be made to one's living arrangements. It's not good enough to clean up the mess and put it all back how it… Continue reading The Daily: 14 July 2023
Central Vermont is in disaster rehabilitation mode after things decidedly fell apart on Monday. There are tubes snaking out of buildings, draining basements of water. Belongings are being corralled and cleaned. Trash and irreparably broken things are filling up bins. Front loaders are scooping up tons of mud and gravel from the roads, and trucks… Continue reading The Daily: 13 July 2023
Today is Julius Caesar's birthday and the reason we call this month July. Then August? His heir... I prefer the Moon of the Flowers and the Nutting Moon and the Cold Moon. And of course the Wolf Moon. I think names matter. I think words matter. These are the ways we see the world and,… Continue reading The Daily: 12 July 2023
This is just to let you all know that I'm more or less fine. My home is well above flood levels, though my basement has some good puddles and the garage is a mud flat. However, my employer is, along with the rest of downtown, underwater. I'm sure some of you have seen images from… Continue reading The Daily: addendum for 11 July
The Weather Well, today is a fun example of the new normal... Vermont is under flash flood warnings for the next 24 hours. Yes, that is all of Vermont. Many towns are being evacuated. Yes, whole towns. My garage had 3 inches of standing water this morning. It got up to about 5 inches before… Continue reading The Daily: 11 July 2023
Here we are, one third of the way through the month of July and heading into the last quarter of the Strawberry Moon. I had a couple good weeks of strawberry harvest before the rodents took over. There are still green berries out there, but they're gone before they turn red. More precisely, those with… Continue reading The Daily: 10 July 2023
I have a complicated relationship with the 4th of July, or maybe with July period because I'm just not a summer person, but especially the 4th. I don't feel any particular urge to celebrate the war that began this country. I'm a committed pacifist and do not honor violence. I don't even like military music.… Continue reading The Daily: 5 July 2023
On the Existence of Independence (A repost for the 4th) It is early July. In my country, we set fire to gunpowder and other explosives wrapped in paper — which are produced almost entirely in extremely hazardous conditions outside of this country — to mimic the actual gunpowder explosions that presumably were the background for… Continue reading The Daily: 4 July 2023
The Dog Days are upon us. For me, this name evokes childhood afternoons spent with my collie, Toby, reading under the fig tree, swimming in river pot-holes, and generally doing as little as possible. I have never loved summer best. I’ve never liked heat. Nor did Toby. We invented all sorts of escapes. Mind you,… Continue reading The Daily: 3 July 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 