I heard the customary scratch on the front door tonight and when I went to let him in, Owen hustled off the front porch and out into the yard. At first, I thought he was after a bone, because sometimes he hopes I’ll let him bring them inside. Whatever he had, wasn’t a bone. I then hoped someone had thrown a dog toy over the back gate, but no, what he had, was the back end of a bunny. When we’re up at the cabin, Owen and Raymond are obsessed in that way that only bird dogs can be, about…
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I’ll be reviewing this terrific book soon for Bookslut, but I came across a passage about the power of dinner that I loved and wanted to share with you all. But before I get to that, this is a wonderful read, despite a cover that Dwight Garner described (in his spot-on review in the New York Times) as “… like the cover of some mediocre nonprofit group’s annual report, or of Guideposts magazine.” As Garner points out, this book not only tells a fabulous story, but Ciezaldo is a terrific writer, the kind you want to keep reading lines out loud…
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The famous Livingston winds hit last night — up at Choteau, near Glacier, the gauge clocked 114 before it broke into pieces — I don’t know what it was here, but it was the kind of morning where stuff is all over the yard. Among the things that blew askew was the cover that’s been on the hoop house all winter. Here’s how it looked inside — the scallions are pretty battered, but they look like they’ll come back strong. The chard, hard to tell? I pulled the deadest leaves off the surviving chard plants, and pulled a couple of…
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It’s nearly six o’clock and not entirely dark outside. And although the wind blew so hard I had to change course halfway around the dog park, because it was blowing so hard I was stopped in my tracks, it was nearly fifty degrees today. I got the chicken coop cleaned out, the girls had a dust bath in the sunshine, and it’s that moment when you can start to feel the earth tilt back toward the sun. I’m sure we’ll have more sub-zero weather, and more snow, but I can feel Persephone making her way back to the surface. Such…
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When I drove down the road from the cabin the other morning, what should I see but new babies! There were six of them hanging out in the shelter of the State section. At this age they seem far less interested in eating hay than in nestling in it — a wee cattle nursery. I love this time of year in Montana. From now until summer there’ll be field after field filled with baby cows and baby sheep (and sometimes baby goats). We’ll also get to look forward to the bambis — who are beyond cute. Of course, we were…
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My coffee post, and this article by Marion Nestle about the 2010 Dietary Guidelines released by the FDA yesterday, have me thinking about groceries. Anyone who has read this blog for a while must know, I’m a big believer in buying real food, preferably from people you know. We buy a pig and a lamb every year (although I’m pretty sure Himself doesn’t love lamb the way I do). People give us gifts of elk and antelope and home-raised beef on occasion. I have a garden and chickens for eggs. But I guess one of the reasons I wanted to…
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For many years, I didn’t really drink coffee, but now that I live with someone who is very much not a morning person, and who introduced me to the decadent habit of having a cup of coffee in bed before rising, well, I am now a coffee drinker. However, I am not not not a coffee snob. I find all the fussing repellant. As well as the mere idea of spending a gazillion dollars on a home expresso machine. Just seems showoffy, and if I want some foamy coffee thing, I’ll walk over two blocks and support a local business.…
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Last week I went back to the midwest to celebrate my grandmother’s 100th birthday. Here she is as a very small child in front of the famous Chicago Water Tower. Jane Plamondon Ripley was born into a manufacturing family in 1911, and I believe she was the first grandchild (if not, the others lived in Michigan, so she was the first one at home). Her grandparents, Charles and Mary Plamondon were leading citizens of the boomtown that was Chicago at the turn of the last century, and when they went down on the Lusitania, their funerals brought hundreds of people…
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A weekend like this one, when someone decides to murder a bunch of civic-minded folks who have come to a supermarket to chat with their Congresswoman, well, it makes you think about all the things you can’t control in this world. So I came inside, and I cleaned my floors, and washed my slipcovers, and made an angel food cake with all those egg whites left over from the Christmas profiteroles and then made a loaf of Darina Allen’s Brown Soda Bread (since I was out of regular bread and the sourdough starter needed some time). I’ve got a leftover…
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My new CookBookSlut column is up over at Bookslut — I take on cooking and urban homesteading as one approach to the continuing implosion of the economy and the unabating high unemployment rate. I mean, if we’re not going to have jobs anymore, we’d better learn to grow our own and cook our own and take care of our own. (Rant alert, btw.) Here’s a list of the terrific books I discuss this month: A Householder’s Guide to the Universe: A Calendar of Basics for the Home and Beyond Growing, Older: A Chronicle of Death, Life, and Vegetables This Organic…