Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
The heat promised for last week failed to materialize. It never got much above 60°F, and it was rainy and windy most every day. I still have tomatoes in the guest bedroom, chiles in the dubious bathtub, and lots of tender herbs and flowers in the basement under grow lights. I have not planted the… Continue reading The Daily: 31 May 2026
The Flower Moon is full at 4:45am tomorrow morning, so tonight is the closest moonrise to full. I suspect in lunisolar calendars like that of the Irish and Cymri, this full moon after the hawthorn bloomed would have marked Beltaine. Or perhaps Beltaine, the beginning of summer, was set to the seventh full moon after… Continue reading The Daily: 30 May 2026
There are still tomatoes in the guest bedroom... We had a frost Friday morning, coincidentally the first 15-hour day of the growing season. Friday's high temperature was 45°F, which is technically warm enough for the nightshades, but they get cranky. Official wisdom says that "irreversible" damage can happen at temperatures below 50° and frost will… Continue reading The Daily: 26 May 26
What a difference a day makes. I wrote Sunday's post mostly on Friday evening, in the middle of the long, cold rain. At that point, few of my jungle trees had mature leaves. On Saturday, the clouds cleared off for most of the day and the temperature warmed to about 70°F. Then on Sunday, it… Continue reading The Daily: 18 May 2026
The Greening Moon went dark yesterday afternoon, but the trees have not quite embraced the green growing season. Many shrubs are leafed out and the grass is putting on inches every day, but most of the trees are only just hinting at leafy shade to come. The maples are still blooming, dropping their buds everywhere.… Continue reading The Daily: 17 May 2026
May the 4th be with you! Hawthorn Day May 4th is Hawthorn Day. This is the traditional day to tie clooties on hawthorn boughs over magical springs. It's one of the days when villages compete to make the most astonishingly elaborate display of greenery and white flowers. It's the Feast of Bona Dea when we… Continue reading The Daily: 4 May 2026
Central Vermont has been experiencing spring weather whiplash. This is what my garden looked like last Sunday (the 21st). We got over three-quarters of an inch of precipitation, nearly all snow, though it melted within the day. The Thursday before this Sunday snowstorm, it was 74°F and very humid. Thursday night into Friday morning, a… Continue reading The Daily: 27 April 2026
Floralia Cosiddetta Flora from the Villa di Arianna in Stabiae near Pompeii, 1st century Roman fresco The festival of Floralia is a very old holiday. It honors Flora, the Roman idea of fertility that is embodied in spring flowers. Flora is one of the oldest deities in the Roman pantheon. She is older than Rome,… Continue reading The Daily: 26 April 2026
Winter has somewhat relented. The snow is gone. We've had showers of just plain rain, not snow or sleet, and several days with the sun shining. At least for a few hours. But it is not warm. Sunday morning the weather forecast was for 60s (°F) and rain; we woke to 27°F and weak sunlight… Continue reading The Daily: 13 April 2026
There seems to be some struggle to enumerate the ways in which closing the Strait of Hormuz affects an average person anywhere in the world, but particularly within the historically comfortably insulated United States. This stems from our broad and long-standing ignorance of how stuff gets to us. This is such a deep problem that… Continue reading The Daily: 6 April 2026
By My Solitary Hearth 