Well, it’s the 2nd week of March and I’ve burned less than four cords of wood since the season began last October. The cost to me? Oh, a lot of entertainment last summer with chain saw and maul. The thrill of assembling the most Dr. Seussian wood shed in the county. The delight of a …

My gallery in Calistoga, California (Stix and Stones Gallery, wish they had a website) called some time ago with an announcement that they were running low on original artwork by me, and that they would like some more, please.
This is a good thing.
So I have created four new originals which I will be featuring in …

Warning: this is a messy procedure. Learn from my woes and surround your interior chimney with an old sheet before proceeding.
Well, since we never actually had winter around here I’ll detail this procedure and post the pictures from when I cleaned the chimbley around Christmas time. The principles are still relevant and I’ll do this …

Well, you guys have been asking about this, so here’s the news on my book. Tentatively entitled “Rain,” it explores the world of a slave whom we first glimpse as it lies dying in the desert, six weeks before the Biblical Flood.
The slave has no name, no will—not even a gender. It only has one …

I had to get on the roof.
When I get sick to my stomach I get really sick. Violently sick. It’s icky. And the timing was rather poor for the violently-icky illness I had over the holiday, because our chimbley was clogged* and I had to get on the roof to fix it. Until I could …

A short illustrative story withal: Once upon a time we were tooling up the highway amidst the mountains of British Columbia, on our way to Canada’s beautiful Banff National Park. Just after sunset we stopped the car to let the kids run around and throw rocks in the river. We almost didn’t get going again. …

So the new issue of Backwoods Home Magazine is starting to show up in mailboxes nationwide, with a little writeup by Yours Truly. It’s not on the website yet, but check at your library. I’d love to hear your reaction, both positive and negative.* If the horde shows up with tomatoes and rocks, I’m ruined! …

Here I am putting insulation on the chicken coop roof. (The long gimcrack in the foreground is the feeder.)With my ravishing good looks in coveralls and high-fashion cap, I’m ready for the cover of Vogue.
I heard once that ducks are cold-tolerant because they’re descended from wild ducks that live in cold wildlands; and chickens are …

From left: Katie, Natalie (sorry about your head, Nat), Becca, and Abby string popcorn for the tree
Well as you might have guessed, I took a few days off of work last week for the Thanksgiving holiday (as you might have done too). My parents were visiting for the last time before they leave for their …

Well, the glass is finally on the greenhouse. Yahoo! All I have to do now is finish wrapping it with plastic sheeting to keep the snow out of it. You can see that we’ve put our bikes and various other summer paraphernalia in there to keep them out of the snow; but later on this …