Tonight is the new moon. If you’re reading Mary Oliver’s Twelve Moons as a lunar calendar with me this year, it’s time for another poem, Bone Poem.
As you probably know, Ms. Oliver is writing about castings, the pellets of indigestible bone fragments, hair, and other byproducts of the animals carnivorous birds, particularly owls, eat. The birds eat their prey whole, and the detritus becomes compressed into these dry pellets, which are regurgitated later. Continue reading
For various reasons, we’re retooling the homestead this autumn. We’re unveiling “Homestead 2.0.”
For the first autumn in 2 or 3 years, I’m not hunting moose. I mixed up the application date, and lost the chance to hunt this season. That has worked out well, as we traveled during the first weeks of the hunt. Being freed of the need to take full advantage of the narrow window, I’m looking forward to spending time on all the tasks that nagged at me while in the field in previous years.
The most radical change to the life we’ve enjoyed these past 5 years (and the 13 years previous to it) is, of course, Aly’s departure for college. Our entire pattern of living will now be altered in ways we have not anticipated. It will change the division of labor, how we prepare and eat meals, how we use electricity, and especially the exchange of ideas and conversation. The very rhythm of our life will be altered. Continue reading
