Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
This time of year normally sees an explosion of garden productivity. There are baskets of veg every day, mostly summer squash and tomatoes. This year has not been good in my garden, but then this is the first garden in this home. I have learned what not to do and made adjustments in the master… Continue reading Ratatouille
I am engaged in building a future for my kids out of this mess of a present, largely created by my parents' generation. One of the most wearing aspects of this project is not giving in to despair. Merely seeing what might be good — or even survivable — is difficult. So from time to… Continue reading Lughnasadh 2041
For those interested in the practicalities of cooking without a kitchen, Christine Dann shared this video from Massey University (University of New Zealand) on How to Cook a Hangi (a traditional Maori feast). This is special occasion cooking. Just the cooking process takes about five hours. They have constructed the holes, gathered all the fuel… Continue reading Further and Further
Because there isn’t an in between in this age of extremes, Vermont has gone from drought to deluge in one week. The heat has broken. Instead, there is a clammy chill that settles in the joints and swells doors well past sticky — there is much kicking involved in leaving the house. I can’t hang… Continue reading The Wednesday Word: 14 July 2021
My grandmother was born over a century ago in Ireland. We don’t know where. She would never say. She and her twin sister were adopted by the Daleys of Chicago. She changed from foundling to heiress as she crossed the Atlantic. Her name and her ancestors were abandoned on the quay — and she was… Continue reading My Grandmother’s Hands
When I was a teenager, my dad up and moved us from Northern California to Southern Indiana. I was not amused. There is no love lost between me and Hoosier-land, though I did and still do love the caves and karst topography. But I did learn things there. I learned that cow tipping is indeed… Continue reading Making Hay While the Sun Shines
The front bank. I have an awkward garden, an awkward property actually. I have a house on the east side of the road. In front of the house is a bank at about a 75° downward slope. That is, it’s more like a cliff than a slope. At its highest, it is about eight feet… Continue reading A Xeriscape in Vermont
I live in a rural place, a rural place that is known for its cows. There are cheeses that are named specifically for Vermont (though in rather clueless and ambivalent American fashion, there is often a European geographic appellation attached to “Vermont”, as in “Vermont cheddar”). There are dairies up and down all the hills… Continue reading On a Deficiency of Ice Cream Makers
Paul Bunyan statue in Bangor, Maine. (Wikipedia) It’s that special day in June again. No, not that solstice thing. No, forget graduation. No, not the wedding thing. It’s Paul Bunyan Day! A day to celebrate an absolute idiot who blundered through the north woods, wearing plaid flannel, leading a cow named Babe, and wielding an… Continue reading Paul Bunyan Day
The eighth moon is the Strawberry Moon and, yes, strawberries are bountiful this month — the first real fruit harvest. (I don’t count that rhubarb stuff… it’s chard, not fruit.) While planting and harvesting both happen all year long, this is the month when there is a shift from predominantly planting activities to mainly harvest… Continue reading Midsummer Strawberry Moon
