Why Is Everything Round?

As I looked at today’s harvest of passionfruit, eggs, figs, and (not in the pic), muscadines, I couldn’t help but think about the roundness of it all; four very different things, none of them perfectly spherical, but definitely on the rounded end of...

Home Farm Finds And Neat Stuff

If you’d like to save a little money on seeds for next spring, now’s the time a lot of seed companies are slashing prices. Many seeds save very well for years, but only if you do it the right way. Here are some good seed-storing tips from Rodale. And here...

To Electric-Fence or Not To Electric-Fence?

When I was a kid, my dad strung an electric fence around our horse pasture. It was seldom electrified, so I suppose the horses learned pretty quickly to avoid it. I don’t ever remember the horses getting out, so I’d call it a success. I will also never...

Home Farm Finds And Neat Stuff

Do you know what this is? A handmade solid wood tortilla press! I’m imagining home-milled organic corn tortillas, hot off the griddle. These are handcrafted in a workshop in Santa Maria, California, called Central Coast Woodworks. Pur-tee. And this is impossibly...

My Shame in Being a Homemaker

As far back as I remember, all I’ve ever wanted to be was a homemaker. And for all that time, I’ve been ashamed of it. Perhaps I was born at the wrong time. During the era when I was growing up, in the 1970s, being a homemaker was being devalued....