Coneflowers and friends

On the sunny side of our cabin, we have hundreds of cone flowers (Echinacea), with a few black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) and rampant oregano (Origanum vulgare). The cone flowers are very congenial. They sleep until the hyacinths and irises have had their showtime, then grow tall and burst into flower. Their blooms are long-lived. The bees […]

Dye Painting. Meh.

Today was doodle day on my experimental yard of linen. I went through my winter sketchbooks and found some great motifs. I followed instructions for making “complex colors” (adding complements to primaries — blue + orange, red + green, yellow + purple). My blank canvas was ready. I was surprised that my thin dye mixtures […]

Focus: Dive into Dyeing

One cure for Summer Hyperactivity Disorder is to devote multi-hour chunks to a single project — go deep, get it to a logical stopping point before veering off to the next shiny object. For months I’ve been planning to make a simple shirt from hand-dyed linen. I have the linen. I have the pattern. But […]

Summer Hyperactivity Disorder

It’s crazy. Every impulse has me dashing from garden to computer to kitchen to copy stand. I always have work-in-progress on every surface, but summer expands the “surfaces” to include all of outdoors. Plus, I’m trying to add variety to our plant-based diet by experimenting with new foods and new recipes. Winter brought long weeks […]

St. John’s Wort

When we moved here for the lake view, I discovered the property we bought came with flowers. I had to ask my gardener friends the names of everything. I didn’t differentiate the beloved garden perennials (like peonies and day lilies) from the opportunists (like ox-eye daisies and buttercups). I just wanted to know what everything […]

Of Ants, Aphids, and Dock

I should call my garden Scheherazade. She tells me a thousand and one stories. Nothing gets lopped as long as there is a tale to be told. Today we have Curly Dock, or Rumex crispus, a member of the Buckwheat family. “A deliciously raw tart green if you can find it young. A delicioius cooked […]

The Rochester Patriarchy 1914

Once upon a time, Jim bought a book called “Club Men of Rochester in Caricature.” It was produced in 1914 by Jack Sears and associated cartoonists and printed at the Roycrofters shop in East Aurora NY. The suede-bound volume contains elaborate and affectionate caricatures of 340 Rochester “club men” — businessmen, doctors, lawyers, architects, and […]

The Library

I’m on Chapter 2 of The Library Book by Susan Orlean, the New Yorker writer of one of my very favorite books The Orchid Thief. She is describing the cataclysmic fire at the Los Angeles Central Library, April 29, 1986. It’s riveting. But of course, she started the book by reviewing her own childhood relationship […]