Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
June 15th, the Ides of June, was the last day of Vestalia. With great ceremony, the sanctuary of Vesta was cleansed and closed to the public for another year, the sustaining Vestal hearth-flame hidden behind walls that no man was allowed to pass. This is a slack time, a time when heat is intolerable and… Continue reading The Daily: 15 June 2023
I recently finished Brandon Sanderson's latest Cosmere book, Tress of the Emerald Sea. Like all his books, this one is full of tangential tales and side trips into philosophy, science, and whatever strikes his wide-ranging fancy in the moment. Sanderson is witty without being arrogant and patronizing. His characters are never contrived. His worlds are… Continue reading The Daily: 13 June 2023
The weather continues be confusing. We finally got rain. It has been wet all week, though the precipitation has mostly been those sporadic misting showers that hardly reach the ground. Still, it's stayed humid and we did get a couple good soakings, one storm complete with lightning and hail. Could do without the hail. But… Continue reading The Daily: 12 June 2023
In the last few years I’ve seen a wide variety of people arrive at the conclusion that what we need as a society to avert self-destruction — self and everything else, that is — is a new religion. I’ve encountered novelists and sociologists (who might be predisposed), economists (who probably are not), celebrity chefs and… Continue reading The Daily: 7 June 2023
May was rough! Weather.com has an almanac page showing the whole month at a glance. There were several days with highs only in the 40s (°F) and lows in the 20s. The highest temperature, 89°F, was recorded on the last day of the month; the lowest, 24°F, was just two weeks before that. The average… Continue reading The Daily: 5 June 2023
The seventh moon of the year is the Flower Moon. It is new between 23 April and 21 May. It is full between 7 May and 4 June. This year it is full right at the tail end of its period, at 11:42pm tonight. It will rise closest to full this evening as the sun is setting, at… Continue reading The Daily: 3 June 2023
The heat promised for last week failed to materialize. It never got much above 60°F, and I've had to keep the basil covered most nights to protect it from freezing. My neighbor planted tomatoes last Sunday. They were frost-killed by mid-week. I had planned to plant carrots and cucumbers on Monday evening, but the week's… Continue reading The Daily: 29 May 2023
I was listening to a recent Frankly with Nate Hagens as he talked about the Beyond Growth conference and the degrowth movement generally. Leaving aside that maybe these aren't the same things — it's possible to be 'beyond growth' and yet not embrace the need to shrink, or 'de-grow', our economic activities — I was… Continue reading The Daily: 24 May 23
Ancient Rome celebrated the festival of Rosalia, also called Rosaria, on one or more days from early May to the middle of July. The Oxford Book of Days claims the Rosalia fell on 23 May, so that's what I recorded in my calendar — though it is unusual to see a rose blooming in May… Continue reading The Daily: 23 May 23
This is one of those years in which we skip spring, jumping from a dragging winter straight into sudden summer. Squally snow last week, upper 70s (°F) and thunderstorms forecasted for this week. I suppose that's appropriate as Friday was cold St Dunstan's Day and Saturday was the festival of Mjolnir, the thundering hammer. I… Continue reading The Daily: 22 May 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 