Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
The cicadas began singing their strange song this week. Summer gets down to business when the cicadas come out. The days are getting shorter, but the heat is intensifying. Planting is over for a few weeks and the main activity in the garden is keeping the rampant growth in check. The weeds are taking over.… Continue reading The Wednesday Word: 7 July 2021
The Dog Days are upon us. For me, this name evokes childhood afternoons spent with my collie, Toby, reading under the fig tree, swimming in river pot-holes, and generally doing as little as possible. I have never loved summer best. I’ve never liked heat. Nor did Toby. We invented all sorts of escapes. Mind you,… Continue reading Dog Days of Summer
It is early July. In my country, we set fire to gunpowder and other explosives wrapped in paper — which are produced almost entirely in extremely hazardous conditions outside of this country — to mimic the actual gunpowder explosions that presumably were the background for the signing of a document that declared this small group… Continue reading On the Existence of Independence
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
The worst holiday of the year approaches. This is the dog's assessment. I generally concur, only I'm not too into American Thanksgiving either. For sort of similar reasons. I just don't believe in this country's narratives. No, it's worse than that. I don't approve of this country's narratives. I don't like these foundational stories and… Continue reading The Wednesday Word: 30 June 2021
For 23 June 2021 Last week I received a few more responses, all good. But one made me laugh. And it made me realize I'd put sanctify into a somewhat limiting mind-box. I thought I'd share this submission, particularly for anyone else similarly afflicted. Here is Sanctify by Larry Johnson. Sanctify was a good little… Continue reading The Wednesday Word
I’ve been a practicing pagan, of a rather ecumenical nature, since I was a teenager. I’ve been more or less open about my faith for at least 30 years. At any rate, I’ve not denied it when someone happened to guess correctly, though I’ve not initiated any such conversations. I’ve never been openly ostracized and… Continue reading Solstice
Silence was met with mostly silence. This is not unexpected. However there was more interest than I would have expected for a new thing, enough of it positive that I shall keep going. Stefanie, author of A Stone in the River, threw this up there: We think of silence as the absence of sound. But… Continue reading The Wednesday Word
One of the main thrusts of my thinking and writing is about home. The concept, the application, the economics and management. Recently, I’ve had reason to reconsider my relationship to home, to my home and to my idea of home. I wrote about this, I thought exhaustively, a few weeks ago; but it turns out… Continue reading Homeless
I’ve thought of something I can do with Wednesdays! I participate in various prompts and puzzles on Twitter. I find it helps to keep an old mind limber, being forced to think and create using some idea that is not native to my brain. It forces new perspective. It’s also great fun. And it is… Continue reading The Wednesday Word
By My Solitary Hearth 