Last night it became impossible to ignore. Clipping a stem from my backdoor rosemary pot and stripping its leaves into a pork, tomato, onion, and garlic stuffing for peppers (thank you, dear Nigel Slater), I smelled the green cedary tang as it hit the hot oil, and knew, in my senses before my brain, that […]
Read moreLate summer. It’s LATE SUMMER. Because just like my students, I am fighting to push back the Start of School — specifically the entrance and settling-in of School-Year Mentality into my head, there at its worst to hollow out and colonize my mind — as late as possible. What do I mean by that? College-professoring […]
Read moreA pretty neat day… All politics aside, here’s what I learned today: 1) Meeting The President of the United States will take your breath away and make your heart skip a beat. I’m pretty sure this is universal with meeting any President. 2) The US’s current problems will not be fixed by a bunch of […]
Read moreStill vacationing, friends, readers, and fellow cheapskates. (That’s me in the yellow ocean kayak.) Look for more posts when I begin processing my now-burgeoning tomatoes! Thanks, as ever, for your support and good cheer.
Read moreSo this afternoon, following a morning of errands, I tackled the yard again: grass-cutting, edging, cleaning off the sidewalk, and then weeding, till my clothes were completely soaked with sweat. I mean, even my socks. And my old yard sneakers. Tomatoes have rocketed up and out, putting on green fruit like crazy, necessitating some tucking-in […]
Read moreInspired by today’s ride through a perfect Northeast Iowa summer evening, things I learn and relearn from my simple old machine: 1) If I just get started, it will get easier from there. This applies to everything. 2) From a bike, the world wakes up my senses: flowering vetch, wild lilies, Queen Anne’s lace, black-eyed […]
Read moreThis is the whole manuscript of my novel-under-revision, printed out in 8-point type and hung up on my guest-bedroom wall. (Suitably redneck for my Alabama origins, the duct tape sticks to plaster where Scotch tape won’t.) “So that’s how novelists work,” said a friend on seeing this picture. Well, I don’t know about other novelists […]
Read moreSo I suppose it was inevitable: when a friend and fellow backyard-gardener told me last week that she and her husband and toddler are moving into a new house on the other side of town with a large yard and a somewhat dilapidated pre-existing chicken setup, I immediately thought: This is the chicken-raising chance I’ve […]
Read moreOfficial information from the credit counseling firm, as of today: Original Balance: $22,885.01 Approx Current Balance: Debt Free Total Debt Paid Off: $22,885.01 Last Payment Received: 7/7/2011 Last Payment Amount: $195.18 Next Payment Due: Debt Free Next Payment Amount: N/A
Read moreWhat you see here is the result of my past couple blogging-less weeks of garden work: several big and long-planned projects including the construction, priming, and painting of a new fence (to the far right, now completely enclosing the yard – other people built it and primed it, I painted it); weeding everything and trucking […]
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