As many of you know, we’ve been wrestling with drought in California for the past several years — I think officially the number is five years. Here in the foothills, our usual natural disaster is wildfire, and drought makes fires more likely, more dangerous, and harder to fight because water reserves are low. This means […]
I am not a farmer. I’m not even much of a gardener. My skills relate to hiring smart people and then agreeing with their ideas, which is how I come to have any sort of garden at all. But for the last few years, water has been in short supply in California. The combination of […]
For about ten years I’ve been doing something fun with a few of my friends. It has the utilitarian name of “Craft Day.” Four or five of us get together, usually on a weekend afternoon, and do whatever hand-work types of chores have been piling up in our lives. We started out focused on repairs: […]
There’s a new house in my town that I just adore. It’s heading in the direction of a modern farmhouse but with great vintage details. Right now, it’s built but not landscaped yet so it’s easy to see the place from all angles. In a year or two, enough shrubbery will have grown to obscure […]
Hello! I think it’s time for some surprises. In starting this blog, I want to design a new place for you to join me — somewhere a little less chaotic than social media. A place where longer conversations are possible, with the same mix of public and personal, text and visuals, compassion and curmudgeonizing, humor […]