Fire season arrived in our neck of the woods yesterday. There have been a bunch of big fires burning west of us, over by Missoula, but until now we’d managed to duck the worst of it. A lightning strike set of a small blaze Friday afternoon and yesterday, the winds kicked up and it blew. Those aren’t clouds in the photo, it’s smoke. And you can’t really see from my point-and-shoot, but the clouds of smoke were tinged a weird orange from within, from the gasses burning inside them. Very spooky. And this morning we’re swimming in a thick layer…
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When I first moved here, I joined the gym because, well, everyone tells you joining a gym is a good thing, and it wasn’t very expensive, and it was only a block away from my house. Like most people, I went pretty regularly for a while, and then I think there was a span of about a year and a half where I paid my monthly dues and never darkened the door. Finally, I quit (which I’d been avoiding because I didn’t want to tell them that I was quitting), and I started walking the dogs in the morning instead.…
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The heat wave in July was both record-breaking and unpleasant. But look what it brought. Tomatoes! Basil! Breakfast in summer is toast rubbed lightly with a clove of garlic, smeared with goat cheese, and topped with sliced tomato from the garden and shredded basil. A drop or two of nice olive oil and some fleur de sel and well … what more could anyone want for breakfast? For the record (which I’m terrible about keeping garden records), the first tomatoes this year were the Whippersnapper cherries, followed by Galina (a yellow cherry that spreads all over the garden, but produces…
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I haven’t had a chance to read Barbara Kingsolver’s new book, Animal Vegetable Miracle yet (it’s still out at the library, which I’m trying to use more because if I fail at living small, it’s on the book front), but the sheer volume of press it’s getting has had me thinking that it was time to revisit Joan Dye Grussow’s earlier book on the same subject, This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader. One of the things that sold me on this house was the big, if fallow, vegetable garden in the back yard. Eight children grew up in…
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We’ve been having a little dispute here in Livingston with a local developer — he accused those of us who disagree with him of being victims of “class envy” — oh, and he called us stupid too. We were a little pissed off, and I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper. Looks like it’s been picked up out there on the internets — go have a look: “Class Envy” in Montana: The Ameya Preserve Saga
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I was showing my house to some visitors from LA last week, and Brooke noticed the jams and preserves lined up at the top of my pantry. “Do you know someone who makes those for you?” she asked. “I did that,” I said. “Really?” she seemed surprised, as if she’d never known anyone who made jam. “If I’m here next summer will you show me how?” “Sure,” I told her. “It’s easy.” It got me thinking about skills that used to be considered perfectly ordinary: making jam, running up a skirt on a sewing machine, growing some of your own…
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A few groovy new sites I found: Leslie Land, the GreenGrower: check out the instructions for building a gorgeous twig garden arch in her blog. The Daily Green: has a piece on an upcoming scientific paper on colony collapse disorder. Also, in the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert writes about colony collapse disorder and her own experience keeping bees. There’s also some great footage of the pulley system she’s devised to try to keep the bears out of her hives.
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Look what I found yesterday? One perfect little porcini. It was just off the trail, it’s little brown cap barely poking through the duff. We’ve had a few afternoon thunderstorms lately, and on a whim, I went up to the trail where I’ve sometimes found boletes … this was the only one I found, but look how beautiful it was. Here’s the cross section: Not one single bug. A perfect porcini. I ate it sautéed with butter and a little olive oil, with some garlic, and parsley from the garden. It was delicious. Perfect.
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Sandra Gilbert reviews the marvelous new Hermione Lee biography of Edith Wharton (Don’t even get me started on the many many ways that Edith Wharton outshines Henry James — just go read the Custom of the Country. Do it now.) Bookslut interviews Thomas Mallon Ron Hogan at Beatrice asks Jean Thompson about her favorite short stories. (Why didn’t I study with this woman when I was at the U of I all those years ago? Why, oh why, did I get Rocco Fumento instead?) Meanwhile, I’m currently mesmerized by Thompson’s recent collection: Throw Like a Girl
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If you’re like me, most travel involves investigation of grocery stores. The Guardian UK asks, “What do you stuff in your suitcase?” Last trip I took was to Seattle — I returned with the following: Paella pan from The Spanish Table spices from World Spice Market cooler full of oysters from Mutual Fish Asian vegetable seeds from Umajiwaya Question for you readers — what did you stuff in your suitcase last trip?