Well, here are some of the newest crop: seven Buff Orpington chicks purchased the other day at the local co-op. (Wait, there’s a pun in there somewhere …) Are they hens? Roosters? We don’t know, and probably won’t until fall, when they’re mostly grown up. Then, may the best rooster win. The rest will end …

The BGF is fine, by the way. I put in three quarts of new Mercon V transmission fluid, just like the owner’s manual said to use, and started the vehicle, backed it up, and drove it down the driveway, and it was fine. It was a little shakey on startup; maybe that was due to …

It’s a bit like Satie. Or, in our case, Satie played by daughter Emma on our old piano. On a fresh Saturday morning, spring sunshine gleams in the dining room windows (which you can tell I’ve washed, not altogether effectually, with my homemade window cleaner) (It’s the squeegee’s fault!). These cold jars of cider have …

I think Ford is not terribly excited about consumers working on their (our) vehicles. They hide the oil filter between the front driver’s tire and the bumper, and don’t tell you where it is. (Don’t you think the oil filter belongs, oh, I don’t know, somewhere near the oil pan?) They scramble the engine layout, …

Our dogs will stop at nothing!!!! to destroy Jessica’s plantings. Flowerbed? Dig it up. New lawn? Dig it up. Newer lawn? Refuse to play anywhere else; chase each other relentlessly for eight hours a day until the grass seed is ground to powder. Fence? What fence? Doggie repellent? That’s for city dogs. Flowerbeds strewn with …

Last week I brought my chain saw out of hibernation and walked around downhill of the house, snipping off sundry little dead trees to tidy up the property. I worked my way down the trail to the garden, and then I found myself looking up at this tree. It’s a lodgepole pine, 70 feet tall …

I posted this post from home on Friday, when I had the day off (and back when my internet connection was working). Looks like it didn’t stick to the post. So I’ll try to replicate it today. (Sorry for not catching it sooner. My life is already so full as to strain credulity, but last …

Just like last year, Jess has started this year’s garden indoors, in the window-seat just off my studio, in a sunny south-facing window. Out of the window you can see down our steep driveway to the Forest Service road, and the long slopes of mountains beyond with their heavy cape of trees. But inside, we’ve …

Yes, it’s a pun. Not as good as some, of course; but perhaps no pun ever is. This egg is  a surprise to us since our little pullet (young hen) laid this egg on the same day that Honey attacked her and ripped out some of her feathers. (Rough day, huh?) We were surprised that …

Long ago, when these mirror-like office lighting grids were born in a Chinese factory, they sighed and said, Well, we’re off for a boring existence. We’ll hang for thirty years with fluorescent lights above us and underpaid employees below, reflecting lights cheerfully, swinging down every year or so to have our bulbs replaced, gathering dust, …