Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Women in Agriculture Thoughts on Food Production for International Women's Day We regularly hear about the gender wage gap. We know about glass ceilings and barriers to advancement. We wring our hands over leadership roles filled mainly by men. These are all vital concerns. But today I’d like to address a disparity that doesn’t get… Continue reading The Daily: 8 March 2023
Participatory Democracy Today is Town Meeting day in Vermont. For the uninitiated, this is the day when Vermonters pack themselves into school gyms and various meeting halls to vote on town governance for the upcoming year. Officials are elected. Laws are debated and passed. Budgets are assigned. If there are complaints or disturbances, these are… Continue reading The Daily: 7 March 2023
There was another interruption to connectivity on Thursday. This is becoming annoying. This time, I was finishing up email for the evening and found that nothing was going through. Fortunately, I'd gotten the essential stuff done already (my new hobby is filling out tedious job applications...). But no posting of this blog happened. I then… Continue reading The Daily: 6 March 2023
It is Ash Wednesday. In the Christian calendar, this day inaugurates the fasts of Lent. This is holy time, a period of 46 days of cleansing and purging the body and soul before the celebration of Easter. The time echoes the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert before he went to his death. Originally,… Continue reading The Daily: 22 February 2023
We lost power last Thursday night. That I still don't know why is testament to the ordinariness of such things. I was typing away at something and suddenly all the lights went out. It had been snowing quite heavily when I drove home from work, but the snow had turned to freezing drizzle by the… Continue reading The Daily: 17 February 2023
February First Fruits & Quirinalia To highlight just how different the seasonal cycle is depending on latitude, mid-February, the last ides period of the ritual year in Rome, was a festival of the first-fruit offerings. While here in Vermont we are barely thinking about the growing season, never mind able to see actual earth, during… Continue reading The Daily: 16 February 2023
A Benediction for Lupercalia Today is Lupercalia. This is one of the oldest festivals in EuroWestern culture and, in fact, likely predates the Euro-bits. As with most ancient things, this holy time is a dense web of themes that don’t all mesh together well, but somehow make a lovely tapestry when viewed from a certain… Continue reading The Daily: 15 February 2023
Like many people, I find the American version of Valentine’s Day and the saccharine and monochromatic view of love it promotes to be repulsive. In my younger days I assumed the whole farce was invented by the greeting card and gifting industry, along with the rise of all manner of fake holidays intended to get… Continue reading The Daily: 14 February 2023
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. — Friedrich Nietzsche (in the Old Farmer's Almanac 2023 Planner) I do not agree with Nietzsche on many things. Big surprise there, I'm sure. So when I saw this alongside the… Continue reading The Daily: 8 February 2023
If Candlemas be bright and clear there'll be two winters in the year. — traditional adage from Scotland Of Candles and Divinatory Beasts There are many weather marking days throughout the year. Candlemas, falling on 2 February, was the day that our ancestors began to get nervous about the spring. A fine Candlemas portends a… Continue reading The Daily: 2 February 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 