So I pulled up into the driveway after getting the new chickens & supplies last night and this is the sight that met my eyes. I’ll describe the hens and goodies later. But now to bewail: Wood shrinks as it dries. This stack has been standing boldly, nobly and independent for better than a month. …

A nice vacation, and we’re glad to be home. In celebration I went out on Saturday and blocked up the first twenty feet or so of the fir that John dropped before we left. Then, in the pouring rain, I rolled the blocks down the hill and up a bit of lumber into the jeep, …

Down by the garden we had a dead white fir two feet thick at the base and about seventy feet high, with a double top, each of which is the size of a good regular conifer. Jess wants more firewood in before the weather turns, and this tree is a prime candidate; but it’s surrounded …

One advantage of living in the boondocks is that places like this are pretty easy to get to. The trailhead for this adventure is about an hour from my front door. I got out of work later than expected on Friday and so did not start up this trail until 8:10 pm local time. And …

Jess found strawberries for six bucks a flat the other day, and brought home four flats. Yes, they’re from a factory farm somewhere in the western hemisphere; yes, they were probably genetically designed to withstand nuclear bombs while still retaining a remote taste of strawberries. But our strawberry bed is not up to this level …

As far as I can tell, “terrific” used to mean “inducing terror,” as in what folks might have felt centuries ago during a tempest. Last night a thunderstorm raged for (by Jessica’s reckoning) two to three hours. I awoke intermittently to the roar of rain on the roof, thunder that rumbled and crashed loud enough …

As denizens of the country, we have to haul our trash in to a county dump once a week or so. We don’t generate that much garbage; everything eatable goes either to the poultry or into the compost, and we recycle all newspapers, magazines, corrugated, pop cans, and unused items. We recycle not in order …

Jess doesn’t like me to take pictures of her, so I had to crop her out of this image. (Besides, the picture is out of focus.) The other two beauties in this shot are a Romaine lettuce (left) and Chinese cabbage she brought up from the garden this morning. On the counter behind her is …

Well, yesterday we went to the local theme park. It was approximately 40,000 degrees outside, but we lived to tell the tale. My kids, like myself, have an abhorrence of any ride with a circular trajectory, when that trajectory is more violent than a Ferris wheel. Jess insisted that Emma ride a roller coaster this …

I cheerfully acknowledge that mine is not Approved Behavior for men my age. Men my age are supposed to have a boat and cruise around on the lake, wearing sunglasses and radiating superiority. They bear the required goatee and mandatory debt. They do NOT dive into the lake with the dog. They do NOT swim …