“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” -Kahlil Gibran
I have dirty feet. The kind of dirty, summer, gardening feet a lot of folks have this time of year. No matter how much I scrub, some of the dirt is there to stay.
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by Shona Hilton
My internal compass has always been set North by Northwest. In fact I have always assumed we would end up in Alaska. So you can imagine my surprise when the Fates decided to pull a fast one and send us East over the Cascades to live in Okanogan County near Tonasket.
Yup, the Hiltons
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by Shona Hilton
I was going to write this time around about foraging for our dinner. Well scratch that idea for now. I want to give a shout out to the rural spirit of this top left hand corner of the US of A.
A little earlier this year I had the pleasure of being the face
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by Shona Hilton
“I am just going outside and may be some time.” Immortal words uttered by the not-so-immortal Captain Oates of Scott’s ill-fated South Pole trip – and words used often in our house when someone has cabin fever and needs to get out before their head explodes or something equally unpleasant.
Being outside, in all
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by Shona Hilton
I love this time of year.  From the autumn equinox right through to Twelfth night. Every season has its place in my affections but autumn and early winter win my heart hands down. First there comes a smattering of brightly colored leaves, the animals start growing winter coats and the hens lay a
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“May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility.”
–Mary Anne Radmacher
I knew it was coming. So when that  last box of the regular CSA season had been picked up, thoroughly inspected and the inside contents happily eaten, I knew then winter had arrived. Technically not yet here
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by Shona Hilton
In Little House on the Prairie, Pa talks practically non-stop about how important dogs are to a homesteader, “What about your dog?” he asks a couple whose horses have been stolen in the night. Adding later to his wife: “Tenderfeet!  Everything they own and no dog to watch it!”  How could they even
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With summer come the eggs.
With a flock of 15 hens, half of whom are getting up in years (three of them are eight!), production slows with the shorter days, and increases with the longer. Four a day, five a day—in January, we can keep up. August? Another story.
In June, and on through October, we
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by Shona Hilton
“I give up.” Periodically I throw down the hay or hoe and declare I have had enough and am moving to a condo in Florida. This usually coincides with a particularly busy time of year when there are not enough hours left at the end of the day to finish the chores and
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by Amanda Meyer
Summer means two things to me: high country hiking and blueberries. Preferably together.
I love the great Northwest, this is my home. I wasn’t born here, but I feel at home here and this is where I will spend the rest of my days. Each year during the summer time, I feel blessed to
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