I live on an island. I think I’ve mentioned this before. Our kids are fifth-generation islanders–those special, moss-laden little barnacled beings that hang out in the deep dark mud in the middle of sports season and are semi-convinced it’s fun until they get home and have to thaw their fingers in a shower, bundle in…
Author: Melinda
Legacy.
What will we leave behind? What characteristics, trinkets, furniture, work, or pieces of land will define us? What knowledge will we bestow? What work ethics or heart will pass through us to future generations? I am making yogurt out of semi-expired milk and cooking hiziki seaweed on the stove while thinking about these things. This is…
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This old stove.
I fell in love with old stoves when I was a kid reading about Ma’s cooking in Little House on the Prairie. I could very nearly taste Ma’s fat-fried cornbread cooked to perfection in a cast iron fry pan over an open fire. And while we’ve nearly replicated that experience at various times while camping…
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Gifts.
It’s raining buckets on our island and our creek is full and rushing along merrily. I could sit there for hours and listen to the busy water. And I found a patch of mossy grass that was soft and springy and unbelievably green. And I checked on our chickens and found they had laid eight…
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Treasures at Blakely Harbor.
“Most people don’t know how brave they really are. In fact, many potential heroes, both men and women, live out their lives in self-doubt. If they only knew they had these deep resources, it would help give them the self-reliance to meet most problems, even a big crisis.” –R.E. Chambers Dawn was dusting off the…
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Garden planning.
I’m eating reheated shepherd’s pie and sipping hot tea with honey while browsing through the Sero Seed catalog and dreaming about spring and summer garden harvests. It’s time to start planning. I’m taking an inventory of what worked last year and I’m going to start building out our wish lists for this year. Then I’ll…
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The Wild Inside.
It can be tough to find our own voice and use it. How odd is that? It’s ours, isn’t it? Where did it go? But it’s true. We are born with a voice distinctly ours, signed, sealed, and delivered–and then somehow we lose it somewhere along the way, like a dropped sock or a coat…
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Friday miscellany.
<Please forgive the poor quality of the photos. This was one of my earliest posts, and I had not updated my phone before I began blogging. I am leaving them here as-is for posterity.> The French-pressed coffee was extra hot and tasted dark and sludgy in a good way on this grey northwest morning so…
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Ripple.
<Please forgive the poor quality of the photos. This was one of my earliest posts, and I had not updated my phone before I began blogging. I am leaving them here as-is for posterity.> “The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.” –Blaise Pascal Today I woke…
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A Writing Studio
I am pretty sure someone cut this out of a magazine and dropped me unceremoniously into it and I’m in awe that I’m hanging out here on a sunny January day telling you all about it…
