All you really need in life is a box and some tape. “No! Don’t recycle, Mom! I need them.” The stack of Amazon boxes reminds Declan of Christmas. I scowl–forty rainforests died because I ordered a few glass bottles. I love the magic of Amazon, it’s the packaging I feel guilty about. Push a button, things arrive. Things I…
How to Be Prepared: When Storms Catch Me By Surprise
Greetings from snowy New England. A friend from Jersey texted “Be safe!” I smiled. “This storm’s going to miss us,” I thought. The roads were clear and people weren’t fighting over the last of the bread and milk. That’s how you can tell. I used to get my forcasts watching the Weather Channel–if anchorman Jim Cantore was anywhere nearby, we were screwed….
Ode to Dad: Squirrel Appreciation Day is Real!
Yes, Squirrel Appreciation Day’s a thing. I saw it on Twitter–it must be true. The number one reason we have Internet is to discover all those things we never knew were critical to life. The second reason is to dumb our reading down to fourth or fifth grade levels so we can relax our brains. In honor of my Dad who…
Food Freak Files: How to Say “Hands Off” Your Thanksgiving Food
Thanksgiving. The season of love, thankfulness, everyone posting the required message of love and appreciation for mankind on the way to Black Friday shopping. For food freaks, it’s the season of selfishness and self-preservation. “I have to bring my own food to Thanksgiving dinner,” said a vegetarian colleague. It’s true–meat eaters sabotage us. I’ve had people pick out…
Amazoning Your Christmas? Don’t Let Box Guilt Consume Your Life!
The boxes, oh, the boxes! My Christmas Amazoning has begun. Every year I make a bargain with my conscience. I’ll pack waste-free lunches, bring my own bags to stores, buy in bulk, reuse dental floss… all to reset the bad environmental karma I get when I wrap Christmas gifts. Wrapping Christmas presents is fun. Unwrapping them’s even better. There’s…
Recycled Food: How to Eat Cheap without Being a Dumpster-Diving Hippie
“What’s that?” the kid asked. She was examining my lunch–apple butter, homemade cheese, and bread I baked that morning wrapped Japanese furoshiki-style in a cloth napkin. “Bread,” I said. That was in the days when I still ate bread. “And that?” “Apple butter. I made it.” Kids stared. One picked up my jar, tapped, and sniffed. They’re part of…
The Art of the Chicken Deal: Training to Outnegotiate Donald Trump
It was decided that the trans-hen-der chicken-that-is-really-a-rooster could not go be sent to the crock pot without a revolt from this vegetarian and that little boy. Then it crowed at 6:10AM, waking the boy again. I started thinking. Humans have eaten animals for centuries. Although I, myself, can’t put a bird on the chopping block, would I be morally responsible giving Cranky the Hen-Now-Rooster…
Turning A Kid’s Pet Chicken into KFC
All is quiet. It’s 4:30AM. The boy is asleep. I write. I drink coffee. It’s my favorite time of day, the time when silence fills the soul with enough peace to survive the next twenty-four hours. At precisely 6:10AM, the hen begins to crow. The boy pops out of bed. “Hi, Mom!” “Go back to sleep, it’s…
Country Zen: Seeing the Dinner Through the Weeds
Every year I plant the garden. Every year I kill half. It’s a cycle. I’m okay with that–I’m getting old enough to do what I want to do in life, no questions asked. I have a system–I project out for harvest and compensate for my incompetence by overplanting. I get in trouble for wasting. “You don’t need to plant…
If It Walks Like a Duck…Poser Homesteading and a Brief History of a Long-Gone Era
Chicken Day is here. We went to the Putnam Farmer’s Co-op to pick out the birds a couple days ago. Putnam is an old Connecticut mill town in “The Quiet Corner,” the Northeastern part of Connecticut now famous for antique shops, formerly where textiles were made. My grandparents–the Canadian side, not the Irish side ironically–owned a liquor…