Today I clipped herbs and dehydrated them in a solar dehydrator I rigged up from a mixing bowl and an antique wire-mesh colander. I then went to work and didn’t check them until evening, where I found all but the thyme burnt to a crisp. So…erm…I think tomorrow I’ll bake cookies in that thing instead. Read more >>

I don’t know what these are. But they’ve taken over my backyard and I love it. The vinca is blooming. The peas are mostly surviving the daily attacks by various local fauna. Daffodils are like little bits of sunshine. This wasn’t so long ago. But we’ve moved on to better things. Josh has already shaved Read more >>

I love marmalade. Adore it, even. And it’s horrendously expensive where I live so I don’t get to have it very often. Well, truthfully speaking, I don’t buy it where I live because it’s not very good. SO, given that it’s California citrus season – or the end of it, actually – there’s a lot Read more >>

For the last two months Josh has been back in his culinary groove. He even took our chef’s knives to be sharpened (and I was so excited about this development that I embarrassed myself exclaiming over the fine hone in the hardware store – but seriously, I’d been using a paring knife for everything for Read more >>

Today we laid my grandfather to rest. I am grateful I was with him when he passed, and still more grateful for my great-uncle John, who led the service with his guitar and played a few cowboy songs and a song my grandfather himself wrote (“Maybe tomorrow I’ll care”). I wanted to post the poem Read more >>

I’m sitting on my neighbors swing playing fetch with their giant puppy while the bees investigate my red linen skirt and the hummingbirds buzz my head on their way to the feeder hanging from a nearby tree. A bee just landed on my finger to check me out. She decided I wasn’t a flower after Read more >>

I’m exhausted. That’s all there is about me. I’ve been doing various things to fight it since wintertime, iron supplements, eliminating coffee, sleeping regularly. Still tired. On to the stuff I’m growing at the moment (with lots of pictures): My neighbor gifted us with an EarthBox and a handful of plants to use with it Read more >>

This brianna.org post about last year’s eensy window garden was mentioned at Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn. That’s one powerful windowsill! The pics below are going to be used in a book on urban gardening by Spanish publishers Ormobook.

On the cusp of releasing our first iPhone app and the new IF, so inspiration and motivation have been keywords to get me through the final stages of these projects. This week I am inspired by: 1) Masanobu Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution (making seedballs from my Freedom Seeds – support the Soil and Health Library Read more >>

I’ve always felt this was by far the best arrangement of this song – I like the Zombies version a lot too.