Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
It’s getting cold in Vermont. We’ve had more than one day that did not top 50°F. But so far, we’ve not had a frost. So I’m still puttering along in the garden as much as I am able. Which is not much this week, being that it’s been raining every day and at least one… Continue reading Winter Approacheth
I realized this week that not everybody knows how to winterize a home. I grew up with wood heat and old houses. I’ve spent the last many years in New England living in even older houses. My Massachusetts farmhouse didn’t even have heating ductwork. (It did have fabulous iron grates in the floors for the… Continue reading Winter Fluff
So... this is just a short post to say that there won't be much from me this week. It is homecoming at the university this weekend. As Person-in-Charge-of-Stuff and Person-in-Charge-of-Events, I won't get another break until they all go home on Sunday afternoon. And with our store manager out with something that is not-COVID but… Continue reading cannot brain today…
To begin with, I have a mild case of COVID again. (Because, hello, People in Charge of Workplace COVID Policies, working in close quarters with someone who has tested positive in the last fortnight, even if masked, means certain transmission for many of us. But, by all means, pay me to sit at home and… Continue reading Not a Garden
I have a strong inclination toward hygge culture. This is not merely that I like being comfortable and among friends… or maybe it is… because those are far more profound than our mainstream EuroWestern culture allows… but I tend to think of it in more philosophical terms. Being comfortable and among friends is precisely the… Continue reading Just Peachy!
It was bean week. Tying up the climbers. Corralling the bush beans. Pulling the stupid Japanese beetles off of the drying beans. Harvesting the pod beans then processing that pile. I also decided to go back to making my own hummus. I don’t know why I ever stopped. I vaguely remember it being difficult to… Continue reading Bean Week
It is the Feast of the Assumption. In the Church calendar, this is the day Mother Mary was taken bodily up to heaven without the inconvenience of dying first. But in the older calendar of Europe, this was the time when it was recognized that the heat of summer was breaking. The Dog Days end… Continue reading The Feast of the Assumption
So here’s an embarrassment… I may have missed blueberry season. Either that or it just didn’t happen much this year in New England. My bushes are still far too young to produce, though there were a few small berries on each plant. At about the same time my bushes were making berries, there were local… Continue reading Foraging
It's the probably not-terribly-ancient festival of bread, Lammas, Hlaf-mas, Loaf Mass. This holiday is possibly an English variant on the Irish first fruits and fair festival of Lughnasadh, but compacted into one day and generally lacking any ritual or narrative. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, churches in East Anglia constructed elaborate displays… Continue reading Lammas Muffins & Myths
Now the rudbeckia are opening. The topmost leaves on the maple trees have a faint wash of orange overlaid on green. And the roadside stands of goldenrod are beginning to turn into fields of sunshine. It is just shy of the season of Lughnasadh. We’ve nearly made it through July, and now the blessedly cool… Continue reading Roasting!
By My Solitary Hearth 