We've had a couple weeks of mostly chilly weather with plenty of rain, multiple days each week. The combination makes it miserable to be a human doing things outdoors unless it's a rare day like today, which was cool but not too windy and humid but not actively raining. Sadly, not a day I was free to plant things and do weeding. But I had a ( Read more... )

Apologies for reposting from elsewhere, but I'm excited enough about this to want to put this on both my cooking blog and here.

Just got the word back from the farmer: we're in as members of the Henry's Farm CSA, sharing a 25-week share with two of our friends. Looking outside at the latest snowfall that is starting to melt and thinking about how ( Read more... )

We were pretty confused since there seemed to be nothing amiss about the weather when the Illinois Wesleyan emergency cancellations robodialer called the house yesterday. I mean, we heard there was supposed to be a storm coming overnight Tues/Wed and had heard the local news hype about how it was going to be a colossal blizzard, but figured that ( Read more... )

Last Saturday, we were playing a gig with the SCA, so we traveled down to the St. Louis area with our musical instruments and our sleeping bags for crashing out at the event site after the dance ball. It rained on us all the way down. I didn't think this would be good because it was obvious that all the rain would freeze overnight.

No help ( Read more... )

Thoughts of snow are refreshing in these weeks we have had of 90-plus-degree days (33-plus for you readers who think in Celsius) and nights of high 80s (still 30-plus for the Celsius-savvy). And, even though it has hardly rained for a month, this is Central Illinois and it's humid every one of those hot days ( Read more... )

When I lived in Wisconsin, I knew it was the time of my birthday when the lilacs and lily-of-the-valley were blooming. I loved bringing the flowers into the house to make it smell like spring. The delicate flowers with a scent that can fill a whole apartment were like a birthday gift from nature, even if sometimes a little belated in years when ( Read more... )

The flowers are so gorgeous this spring, I just had to share some pictures.


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Each year, migrating birds fly over the state, transferring themselves from here to warmer climes and vice versa. Then there are the minivans, trailers and RVs making treks in the same directions, filled with human "snowbirds," many of whom have returned to Illinois in the past two weeks. These migratory patterns are familiar to us. Andrew and I ( Read more... )

Wow. If ever I doubted that I had moved to a place that was bursting with plant life, I can't after living through the first week when plants started seriously blossoming and budding and growing and just generally coming back to life after winter. All of them. At the same time. I swear ( Read more... )

The house we want to buy checks out as mostly satisfactory with a few items that need repair before we take ownership ( Read more... )