The Tangled Nest

Even though I found them on the deep discount rack at REI, my Prana cargo pants were quite a splurge.  But in the spring of 2008 I was on my way to East Africa for two months, and the pants were so light weight, had a touch of spandex that made them perfect for everything [...]

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Amdist the brown branches of February woodlands and urban forests in the Pacific Northwest, one native shrub always turns out the first flowers and bright new leaves– the Indian Plum.  The pendants of tiny greenish-white flower clusters fall beneath glowing green leaves that stick straight up, like the ears of a rabbit.

The flowers will mature [...]

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Dear friends, I’ll be taking a short break from all things technological for the next ten days or so.  See you here when I get back.  Meanwhile…
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the last couple of years.  Friends call a day or two before Valentine’s Day, stressed out. “I have to make 30 Valentines by [...]

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Every morning it’s the same.  I wake up in the darkness while my loved ones still sleep.  I tiptoe into the kitchen to make coffee.  The Pot sits there on the stove, in the shadows.  And out of the silence, it speaks:  “Well, Haupt, what’s for dinner?”  What a rude question before I am even [...]

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Dear friends, I hope you won’t mind an off-topic post this week.  Many of you know that Tom, my husband, works for a global health program at the University of Washington, and that his group has an office in Haiti with more than thirty local staff.  Because of this, we’ve been receiving queries from friends [...]

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Last night I was wrapping a present for Claire, and I don’t know what came over me.  The ugly old box ended up as a cardboard gingerbread house.  When Claire woke up this morning, she thought the box itself was her present.  Now we are plotting a whole upcycled cardboard box village, but I thought [...]

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One day this week we unanimously  decided that Claire was looking much too pale to go to school.  Clearly, she had to stay home, sip hot chocolate, listen to Vince Guaraldi, and decorate the Christmas tree with me (I don’t homeschool, but I do try to keep my priorities straight–if something like, say,  a very [...]

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As we move  deeper into this season of darkness, I have observed that my own impulse to cozy down into an early bedtime is mirrored by the mood of the chickens.  Starting in late summer, the girls put themselves to bed earlier and earlier every night, following the earlier sunsets, and these dark autumn mornings [...]

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Lyanda is out of town, so Claire is stepping in with a guest post:

This week my mom was away and I had to make cookies with my dad, to get ready for a Halloween party. Scary! We decided to make cat and pumpkin cookies. We used a recipe from my “Look And Cook” cookbook, and [...]

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