Like all of us, chickens are creatures that respond to the seasons, to cycles of light and dark. Many breeds of chickens will lay eggs throughout their first winter, but once they get a little older, their egg-laying will usually dwindle and then stop completely as the winter darkness falls. Some people install lights into […]
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The Pace of Creation: How Rumpelstiltskin Wrote My Book
I have spent the last ten days at Whiteley Center on San Juan Island, a residency for writers, academics, artists—anyone trying to do focused work on a project (I call it my Beautiful Writer’s Prison). I am here to almost-finish a draft of my next book. There are deer and otters and seals wandering around, […]
Broody Hens and the Meaning of Life
Instead of making excuses for the fact that I have not made the tiniest appearance here at The Tangled Nest for, um, five months, I’m just going to jump right in with this: Ophelia, one of my beautiful Buff Orpingtons, is broody. She’s been sitting stubbornly in the nest box for days on end and bristles […]
Diaries and the Wild Mind: How to Start (or Re-start) a Journal Habit
Some (but not all!) of my diaries from the past several years. In common with Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Darwin, May Sarton, Anais Nin, Gary Snyder, Katherine Mansfield, Joan Didion, Leonardo da Vinci, St. Therese of Lisieux, and countless other writers, I am a diarist. I have kept a diary, with more or […]
This Cute Raccoon Is Stealing Our Cat Food!
I was out on the back deck reading after dinner when Tom poked his head out the door, looked past me towards the steps, and laughed, saying “Who’s your friend?” We quickly realized that this was the raccoon we’ve seen hanging around our yard recently. Claire and I had spotted her the day before, boldly […]
On Planners, Productivity, and Idle Pleasures
Happy New Year, everyone! Here is my first confession of 2013: I’m a planner geek-nerd-obsessive. I love the tactile and aesthetic delights of a paper planner, as well as the practical benefits. Opening a new planner on January 1 is something I start looking forward to weeks before the calendar page actually flips. I absolutely […]
Infographic: How To Build Our Backyard Chicken Coop
I am flattered that the author of a new chicken book called Henhouse has turned my humble coop-building instructions into this amazing infographic and posted it on Visual.ly. This is a slightly simplified version of our coop, with no “chicken Guantanamo” cage underneath, or aviary around it. But after many years of use, this design […]
Letting Things Go in the Garden (on purpose)
It’s mid-August, and the garden is taking on its late summer look– a gorgeous, tangled, fruitful mess. I try to keep some things up: tomatoes trellised, beans picked, nasturtiums guarded against aphids. But some things I happily and intentionally let go. I’ve been enamored of Imogen Cunningham’s photograph of Morris Graves in his leek garden […]