The Yellow House

A few of you asked me about the little green seedlings growing, packed together, in a photo a few posts ago—they’re pea shoots. I’ve been growing them on my windowsill through the later part of this winter. I thought I’d share the process with you a bit. They are silly-easy to grow, whether you’re a city slicker or country kid, and quite pretty. It’s satisfying to have some sweet, tender greens right at your kitchen window to clip and toss into a salad or sandwich for some texture. » Click to read more

I don’t know what it is about these astronomical-seasonal days that I find significant (beyond the obvious, “first day of spring”), but regardless, I like to mark them somehow.
I’m not into astrology, but I learned that in celestial sea navigation, “first point of Aries” is what the spring equinox was called. Kind of esoteric. I dig it. Here’s to the new season.

Spring is really something, huh? No matter how many times it comes around, I still have a giddy, butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling when things start busting out and warming up. All winter, we’ve scurried from place to place, bundled up, a bit reluctant to spread out further than the warm, safe circles we inhabit. Then, things get crazy! Color, after a season of sepia tones. The time changes! It is still light out when I get home from work.All of a sudden, the world is a place where baby kale plants and tiny white flowers exist. You dig in the ground with a shovel, shyly, almost, testing the waters. Before you know it, you’re outside in your wellies, working in the garden and drinking a can of beer left in your fridge from a shindig that took place at your house with a bunch of kids home from college. There is an untold amount of mud under your fingernails. It feels good! You ignore the fact that your new house appears to have a giant wasp population setting up residence under its eaves, because you’re in such a good mood.
Spring, I’m telling you. Nothing like it.

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Let’s talk about honestly about millet, because the truth is, millet is birdseed. Yeah. I said it. We can wax poetic about various non-wheat grains and seeds as much as we want, but at the end of the day, when I hear the word “millet”, I remember my maternal grandmother filling her birdfeeders. Which isn’t a bad memory, per se, it’s just not evocative of…people food. » Click to read more

In truth, I’ve been glad to have a brief retreat from this space. I’m a person who enjoys (perhaps over-much) stepping back and assessing. What am I doing here? Increasingly and amazingly, after a year, that question could now be phrased, What are we doing here? We! Writer, reader! That change of pronoun is exciting itself. Thanks for that, everyone.

Can I tell you something, though? When I step back and do my assessing, I feel distinctly uneasy.

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