Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
The Dog Days begin today. This is when Sol and Sirius shine together all day long, creating blast-furnace heat. Or maybe that's just carbon... Canada is on fire. Europe is boiling. The Mediterranean is as warm as spit. The Pacific Ocean might be ENSO-neutral; but June 2025 was as hot as in any El Niño… Continue reading The Daily: 3 July 2025
Last week, during our very brief flirtation with temperatures above freezing, my coworker announced that he could see his solar panels for the first time since December. Late last fall, he bought a house that has rooftop solar. The roof is pitched to shed snow, but there are just enough little raised edges and crevices… Continue reading The Daily: 10 March 2025
So... I said I would have a real stroke when the emergency room bill came in... Well, it arrived today. I vastly underestimated it. I almost vomited. It was so outrageous I had to share... because I'm not the only one... The grand total was about $13,000... to tell me I had heat stroke. Which… Continue reading The Daily: 7 August, Epilogue
Things to look forward to... a drink of water About a month ago, in fact, the weekend before the second flooding, it was hot. Of course it was hot. And very humid. Of course that too. That's what we get these days. Hot and humid. For days and days and days and no relief even… Continue reading The Daily: 7 August 2024
Things to look forward to... visiting a museum The Dog Days begin today. This is when Sol and Sirius shine together all day long, creating blast-furnace heat. Or maybe that's just carbon... Either way, it is the hottest time of the year in northern climes. My mother keeps calling to tell me the latest and… Continue reading The Daily: 3 July 2024
Today, though the string of longest days ended last week, the latest sunsets end in my part of the world. Tomorrow, the sun will set earlier enough to knock a minute off the evening. By the end of July the day will be about an hour less than its Midsummer length. Also, this Friday the… Continue reading The Daily: 1 July 2024
Summer may have decided to arrive. We've flirted with heat here and there, even hit 93°F back in May, but it has not lasted. It would be warm for a day or two, then it would return to jacket weather. As of this writing I still have not planted out the nightshades because it's been… Continue reading The Daily: 17 June 2024
The Official Groundhog in Pennsylvania did not see his shadow. If there are groundhogs stirring in Vermont, they also did not see their shadows. There have been few shadows for months and none this week. In my weather calendar, I’ve recorded three days of sun and another four of partial sun since November. Not especially… Continue reading The Daily: 5 February 2024
I’m still on the subject of heat. I imagine many of you are as well, given that the weather in the Northern Hemisphere is turning cold, and there’s this ongoing fuel crisis where it’s coldest… We haven’t had a hard freeze here yet, but it’s been cold enough to drape frost over the fields on… Continue reading Heat: A Common Concern?
I realized this week that not everybody knows how to winterize a home. I grew up with wood heat and old houses. I’ve spent the last many years in New England living in even older houses. My Massachusetts farmhouse didn’t even have heating ductwork. (It did have fabulous iron grates in the floors for the… Continue reading Winter Fluff
By My Solitary Hearth 