Keepers
Growing food is enough of a learning curve. Storing it takes the game to another level, especially when built environment is low tech and low square footage and natural environment is getting increasingly warm and erratic. Last year the apples kept in the root…
Cornucopia
Life Goal: Collect beautiful baskets made out of natural fibers like the ones my friend Anore has. Anore is 80 years old, widowed 5 years ago, homesteading alone off-grid on 5 acres on Waldron in the San Juan Islands. She goes barefoot outdoors even…
Ashes to Watermelon
A maple tree that had grown on the ridge south of the creek heated my cabin for the first half of the winter last year. It showed up in pieces in the back of a white pickup several days after I messaged a local…
Say Cheese
I spent my birthday money on a cheese making kit. A step or two up from the single-batch gift boxes, it was an entry-level hobbyist setup with all the basic hardware and enough enzyme and rennet for a dozen or so batches, recipes included…
Heat Storm
The heat storm burned the new leaves on the blueberry bushes. Rhododendron, too. Day before the heat storm when temps were only in the mid-90’s, I cut 9” off my ponytail with a kid scissors. It was 18 months since I had gotten a…
A Cow Named Lu
As I was driving back from an errand an hour or so southwest of home, a highway sign alerted me to a total closure of I-5 a few exits north due to an accident. I chose my own detour and found myself in a…
Arrival II: The Pie Garden
June 7, 2019 marks the first Edgewild strawberry and indeed the first Edgewild harvest of any kind. The total strawberry yield that season was about half a pound. My basis for that estimate is memory of quantity and size of berries compared to what…
Themes and Variations
May went fast. This is going to be more of a gallery than a blog post. All three Foodshed Challenge days for last month. It’s also a work in progress. I am getting the pictures up here. I will add captions and descriptions as…
State Fare
My first experiment in eating local took place in spring of 2010, six full weeks in March and April. Strangely enough it was my first time observing Lent and I was doing so shortly following my departure from formal religion. For a recovering Evangelical,…
Meet the Neighbors
Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors. Her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle chronicles her family’s adventure in eating local and seasonal for a whole year. It’s years now since I read it and the details are fuzzy but I ought to credit it…