One of the biggest dilemmas I face trying to live small is what to do when things break. I had a trusty old Roper washer that I bought from our friends Chris and Lon when we moved into the townhouse in Hayward all those years ago (10? was it really 10 years ago — must have been). I think we spent $100 for the pair, and Lon and Chris hadn’t paid much more for them new. They were very basic. The washer had hot and cold settings and that was about it. But it worked, and considering I was in…
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There’s a new community garden here in Livingston, and it’s right up at the end of my alley at the Lincoln School. The Lincoln School was converted years ago into artists studios — they’re not very expensive and there’s always a waiting list for those nice old classrooms with the big windows. There have always been two big patches of lawn out front, and when the International Fly Fishing Center was there, they’d have casting classes in the summer. This spring, someone got the splendid idea of converting all that useless grass into a community garden. Saturday I walked over…
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There they are — the first morels of the season. The Sweetheart and I found them up behind his cabin yesterday — eleven of them, nearly 12 ounces total (yes, I’m a nerd, I weighed them). It never gets old, the thrill of finding a mushroom in the grass. I also found a couple of nice clumps of early oyster mushrooms. Little bitty ones, which sauteed up beautifully. So last night we had mushroom pizzas — one with morels and red onion and sausage and one with greens from the hoop house and sausage and both kinds of mushrooms (someone…
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Continuing the discussion about cooking, and having time to cook, Michael Ruhlman threw down the gauntlet at the IACP event in Portland, Oregon last week when he called “bullshit” on the idea that we all lead such busy lives that we don’t have time to cook. Ruhlman’s point is that we all have the same number of hours in the day, and we choose how to use them — many of us may choose not to cook, but by claiming we’re “too busy” we’re just buying into propaganda the food industry has been selling us, nonstop, for the past 30…
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Spring has sprung here in Montana. The bluebirds are back — there’s a number of them zipping around up at the cabin (although I haven’t seen anything as dramatic as this photo). They’re a color blue that you can’t quite believe exists in nature, much less that it’s zipping around out there catching bugs, building nests and having babies. Just like the vibrant bluebirds, a friend of mine who works for a fire watch company in Cocoa Beach embodies a rare dedication, always ready and alert to safeguard others. At the end of last summer, when we were hiking up…
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I came back from my week in Seattle and found that the hoop houses have been a huge success. The photo above is my first batch of spring greens — arugula, broccoli rabe, komatsuna, and a few dandelions from the yard. I was just thrilled. There were enough thinnings that I’ve been eating my own greens, fresh from the yard, for the first time since last summer. I have to say, I think part of the reason I came down with strep is that after growing my own veggies, the ones in the store, especially in the winter in Montana,…
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Off to Seattle first thing in the morning to put the golden handcuffs back on. Will try to post while I’m away. On the one hand, I’m really glad to be going back to work, especially since I have trouble organizing my day when I have too much free time. I’m also looking forward to working with this team — I know and like them all, and it seems like a really congenial and supportive group. So, despite my worries about backsliding in my creative and writing lives, I’m kind of excited to be going back to Corporate Life (and…
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I’ve been felled by strep throat, for the first time in ages. The antibiotics are starting to kick in, but LivingSmall is going to be quiet for the next day or two. Poke around in the archives, there’s a lot in there …
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The LA Times Recyclist blog has an entry today about a subject near and dear to my heart — cloth tea towels and napkins instead of paper. First of all, I hate paper napkins — they’re thin and crumply and scratchy. My well-worn cloth napkins (average age at this point — 6-9 years) are soft and absorbant and nice. They don’t slip off your lap. They take care of even the messiest sauce. And when we’re done with them, they go in the hamper just outside the kitchen door. Like the blog poster, the key is quantity. Buy big packs…
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I hesitate to broadcast this to the universe, but we seem to have reached a state of interspecies harmony here at the homestead. Raymond, former chicken-killer, seems to have figured out that he can follow the chickens around the yard, wagging his tail at them, and making small whining sounds without actually having to kill them. It’s clear he wants them, but so far, he’s managed, even unsupervised, not to kill them. And here’s Owen. If you look closely, you can see chickens taking dust baths in the background behind them. Owie’s never killed a chicken, his current challenge is…