Of my 19 new patrons, two of them — familiar faces — have Patreon creator pages of their own. I was moved that creatives who are trying to raise money on Patreon themselves would step up for me. So here’s a shout-out to those two, whose work you’ll enjoy: Montana Homesteading is Kit Perez. You know her as the high-energy proprietor of The Patrick Henry Society and The Order of the White Rose. She started her homesteading blog on Patreon early this summer, then almost immediately had to set it aside to deal with everything from wildfires to a new…
Category: Rural and small-town living
Life far from freeways, Starbucks, malls, and other benefits/distractions
Yesterday Neighbor J. took me to the Big City for a special treat. Not the utilitarian place I laughingly call the Big City. But the really cool place I laughingly call the Big City. So I’m behind on correspondence — especially on thanking people for subscribing to my Patreon. I’ll catch up with you. I promise! But it was a fine day. Even though it wasn’t a fine day. I took one of the new blog cameras with me, just in case. J. treated me to lunch at this incredible restaurant. I haven’t understood the point of people taking pictures…
Seen around town: It was posted on a stop sign on an obscure side street, but visible from a main road. I have no idea what it’s about. However, A Revealing Clew was on an adjacent fence post: a sign announcing the location of somebody’s wedding reception. Perhaps the new Mrs. Hendrickson (who neither hunts nor fishes nor camps?) jilted an outdoorsy boyfriend. Perhaps Mr. Hendrickson (who neither hunts nor fishes nor camps?) stole the girlfriend of an outdoorsy buddy. We’ll never know. But wouldn’t you love to? Seen around my yard: A few of the neighbors’ chickens and their…
Been dry and warm. I’ve been working on the outside of the house (north wall, exterior of screen porch; I’d have pix except for my camera having died and the phone cameras being a PITA). But yesterday was misty. Enough that the “mist” dripped from the eaves all morning. So I slipped under the cover of the screen porch and returned to shingling the wall between porch and bedroom. A small fear I’ve been nursing soon proved true: I’m going to run out of shingles on the last row. On the very last freakin’ row. I hate it when that…
That’s an Indian burial tree, so yesterday’s host told me. I wasn’t able to find out a lot about it, though it resembles Indian marker trees, but with the bend higher up, and I know some tribes did “bury” their dead in trees or on scaffolds. Anyhow, there were quite a few of these around the barbecue pavilion at the house where the cannon shoot took place. All cedars. An archaeologist told my hosts the trees were only about 250 years old and therefore had probably been prepared for burials but never actually used. Somehow that made it slightly less…
… into the side of my head. Okay, I exaggerate Not into my head, but certainly into my house. There’s painting to do! Dirt to dig! Trim to trim! Instead, on this fine late-summer day (the kind of day that reminds you to savor every moment because there won’t be many more), I’m headed off to — ugh — socialize. Yes, I’m leaden with dread because (oh, I’m sure you’ll pity me so), I’ve been invited to spend my afternoon hanging out with a bunch of local artists and their friends at a gathering whose main purpose seems to be…
It’s county fair time. When I was 14 all that meant was riding the Tilt-a-Whirl two dozen times and getting to see big-name entertainment in the giant grandstands. That was in a mega-urban area and if people still entered their home-canned goods or their market hogs, I was unaware of it (and much too sophisticated to care). It’s a little different when you live in a county that’s basically one vast rural neighborhood. Here, the main stage holds an audience of 100 on plastic lawn chairs and “entertainment” might mean a polka band or a little girl giving a presentation…
We (but mostly The Wandering Monk) finished the screen porch framing except for the part above the door. That, and hopefully a fair bit of siding, should be done tomorrow. Well, barring the standard unpleasant discoveries, courtesy of Ye Olde Wreck’s original builders, Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. Fortunately we’ve reached the point where those discoveries are of the “how the heck do we fit those crazy angles together” variety rather than the “why didn’t I just tear the house down when I had the chance?” sort. But there sure are a lot of those little angles that don’t like…
Writer Annie Dillard described the wonder and strangeness of a total solar eclipse. Even scientists express awe as they examine data. I’ll be outside the totality zone for this month’s nation-covering eclipse. Everyone says that even near totality (which I’ll see) is a million miles from the true magic. Until you’ve watched the sun completely disappear by day, leaving only a glowing corona, you don’t know the glory of an eclipse, so they tell us. Where will you be on August 21? Anybody traveling to get a better view?