Confession: I am a sunshine lover, but oh, the nice rich rain! All day it has fallen; and if it nourishes even me, how must the grass feel? ***** It rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never in all his life, and he was goodness knows how old–three, was it, […]
In [amazon_link id=”0440414806″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Holes[/amazon_link] by Louis Sachar, Stanley Yelnats is sentenced to eighteen months at a boys’ penitential camp, where each boy must dig a five-foot hole in the desert every single day. Five feet across in every direction, five feet deep. “If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every
Confession: Where I come from, this is how we do math: seeds + earth = the purest of happiness Look what my dad made me: Last night he called to say “Do you want to come over? I have something for you.” He’s pretty great. (I think I would have said that even if he
The sun’s birthday Read More »
Confession: This is how I generally feel about winter. Poorly-planned landscapes. Gray on gray. Gray on gray. Today I went on a little Expotition to the North Pole (as Pooh) to see if I could find something more inspiring than the above. Anything green, anything growing. Guess what? The earth has layers. (Incidentally, this post
Confession: Sometimes my posts have hidden pieces I don’t share. Do you want to see? ***** Confession: I hate controversial topics, though I tackle them. I do love truth. Multifaceted, complex, everyone’s-perspective-thrown-in-truth. I love debate. Er. Correction—I love watching debate. But I hate moderating it. This time around, we’ll keep things really simple, focus on
The earth is round. The cycle spins. The grass is greener than you’d expect, this time of year. Melting snow turns to water. Zook yard turns to mudhole. Have you ever dug a hole in January? It’s enchanting. All that rich, dark earth, splendidly flecked with earthworms. I dug a lot of holes on Saturday,
Confession: Moving to a homestead-in-making has made me feel like such a city kid, despite the fact that I grew up in the wilds of Minnesota and come from a long, proud line of bumpkins. Most of the time I don’t know what I’m doing. Here are a few things we learned, mostly the hard
Learned this growing season Read More »
Confession: This whole seed-saving bit is new to me. I don’t think I’ve ever done it before. I wanted something breathable to store my seeds in, so they could keep drying. I remembered how my friend Carla makes spiced cider—by stapling up the whole spices into a clean coffee filter. I’m trying that. Easy to make,
A bit of earth, to make it live Read More »
Confession: I am a shameless beggar. If you want to get some good houseplants started, just ask your local friends for cuttings. That’s what I did, about three weeks ago. I got a great mixture (wandering jew, ivy, a couple kinds of philodendron, and an unidentified) and have been rooting them in water. Last week
Confession: I’ve read many stories about farmers with crop damage, and wondered how it would feel. Owwwww…!! I thought I would mind the loss of money, but in our miniscule case it’s – miniscule. I thought I would mind the loss of time, but I don’t begrudge the few minutes it took to drop seeds
Look at Mother Nature on the run… Read More »