Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
I got my bi-monthly water bill last week. After a bit of mild cardiac arrest, I decided that it was quite the effective underscore on my water use in July and August. Now, there was another rate increase this summer, but that was small compared to the use increase. With both increases combined, I am… Continue reading The Daily: 8 September 2025
Don't you hate when reality ruins a really good idea... Yeah, I know that's not a problem for many people. Economics — even "ecological economics" — wouldn't be a thing if it was regularly reality tested, being based on scarcity over abundance and competition over cooperation... neither of which are true. But anyway... "Grow your… Continue reading The Daily: 25 August 25
The Blueberry Moon went dark yesterday at 2:06am. Today begins the eleventh moon of the year, the Nutting Moon. The Nutting Moon is new between 17 August and 14 September and full between 31 August and 28 September. It is one of two moons that may be dropped to accommodate the wandering Harvest Moon, which… Continue reading The Daily: 24 August 2025
The sweet corn harvest is late here in Vermont. We haven't seen the guy with the pick-up full of corn at the traffic circle. No cubic yard bins of corn at the grocery stores. Very little at the farmers' markets. The orchard I frequent announced that they have corn, but I haven't made it up… Continue reading The Daily: 18 August 2025
The Feast of the Assumption 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… Continue reading The Daily: 15 August 2025
The Perseid meteor shower begins its peak about now. This floating pile of space gunk is left over from Comet Swift-Tuttle and is quite thick still, making for hundreds of collisions with our atmosphere as we pass through it. You can expect fifty or so meteor sightings an hour, about one a minute, from the… Continue reading The Daily: 11 August 2025
Lammas 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… Continue reading The Daily: 2 August 2025
The lingering thick smoke is scary. The inflammation in my spine is scary. The hospital bills are very scary... I am feeling in need of comfort food. I think we all get this way... More often than not, these days. We want something nourishing and simple, something quick, something that doesn't add heat to the… Continue reading The Daily: 28 July 2025
Crom Dubh Sunday In many northern communities, July is a hungry month. The spring flush of greens and quick-growing roots like radishes and beets may still be trickling out of the garden, but most have bolted and run to seed. However, those that remain are long on fiber and short on calories, and little of… Continue reading The Daily: 27 July 2025
The Romans had concerns about drought at this time of year. Three very old festivals were grouped together at the end of July to honor deities who presided over watery things. The first was the Lucaria, the clearing of the groves. This was an ancient observance even in Varro's time (116-27 BCE), and little is… Continue reading The Daily: 25 July 25
By My Solitary Hearth 