Category: Rural Living

  • An Afternoon with Arthur

    I looked out the window on Saturday during “post-tropical storm Arthur” and noticed that there were small-to-middling sized branches on the ground all around my car. I was concerned about the windows. I said to my mother, “Um. Do you think that the cars should be parked directly under the trees?” “Hm. Maybe not. Let…

  • Permaculture and Me

    I am pleased to announce that I have just returned from the spectacular Vancouver Island to the also spectacular, if colder, Cape Breton Island, bearing a new Certificate in Permaculture Design: I can’t tell you how excited I am to show you this. Also, isn’t it pretty? A couple of weeks ago, I undertook the…

  • The Wonders of Lights

    Look what we grew under our grow lights! Grow lights rock!

  • Voila! Instant Art!

    I’m taking a Coursera course about art concepts, and this week the assignment was to create an environmental installation piece. Since I had it up, photographed, and down within 10 minutes, I felt that I should share it more broadly… give it a chance to breathe, as it were. So, without further ado, Garden Party!…

  • Poem: Hidden Knowledge

    Hidden Knowledge In a clearing in the woods On a cliff overlooking the ocean In a cave in the mountains Someone waits. She has the answer you seek, In the hut, In the cottage, In the cave You would not notice her If you passed her in the street. She has mastered the art of…

  • Greenhouse update

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHZxV1AlJHA] And this is the picture once the door was installed:

  • Another Poem

    I swear I will get back to prose some day. But the poems are waking me up. So I write them down. Sometimes, The Wind Sometimes when I leave my home Triumphant, With six things perfectly balanced, The door is torn from my hand And I rail. The wind, the wind! It is a character…

  • See Smaller

    In my ongoing quest for obscurity, I am working here for the month of June (or at least in the building that is out of sight behind me): It is spectacular, and beautiful, and if I hadn’t followed my staggering path, I never would have found it. I never would have found myself running this…

  • Spring Comes, Eventually, With Birds

    We’re just going to pretend May didn’t exist, ‘k? I might talk about it sometime, but suffice it to say that it was a month of profound imbalance, lived largely in vehicles and including an astonishing number of grabbed meals on-the-run, and the gaining of 10 pounds. I’m cranky, irritable, and generally not much fun…

  • Eat Those Dandelions

    Tonight we foraged in our yard. At least partly. The menu this evening was quiche made with dandelion greens, fresh basil that has been growing in a pot in our living room since February, and eggs from our chickens. Thanks are due to one of my friends, who recommended blanching the leaves. Last time I…

  • Beltane Festivities

    It rained. I was sick. I stayed in bed until after lunch, and my partner eventually found me sitting at the desk listlessly clicking through twitter-generated tabs. “Are you coming to plant the May pole in the compost heap? New pile of poo!” (Oh, you know how to talk dirty to a semi-pagan nascent farm…

  • Weekly Photo Challenge: One

    For the Weekly Photo Challenge