There were castles in the mountains.

"I read there that all things live by a generous power and dance to a mighty tune; or I read there that all things are scattered and hurled, that our every arabesque and grand jeté is a frantic variation on our one free fall...

...It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale."

-Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

I've been reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and Annie Dillard's description of the natural world, and our relationship to it, have been stopping me in my tracks.

I'm moving into Anchorage soon, into the cutest little house, and we've been looking into getting a flock of laying hens. I've been planning out the coop and where we can buy the ladies. We visited JM's friend who has a full garden and 8 chickens, and we came home with the little ivory egg in the picture, as well as a grocery-bag full of lettuce and carrots and zucchini (that we promptly made into this).

Mountains that look like castles, and pancakes with percolated coffee, and swimming in the lake in the early mornings. Today is a steady drizzle of rain, but I made this roasted tomato soup and seeded flat bread and we drove around looking for apple orchards last night.

fireweed farm, and two views from my lap.

Honey-yogurt scones from the Fiddlehead cookbook.

Hiking this weekend. It was Narnia the whole way.

I listened to John O'Donohue speak on one of my favorite podcasts, On Being.

He spoke about beauty, and real friendships, and mentioned Blais Pascal, who said

"In difficult times you should always carry something beautiful in your mind."

There are such things as lavender cupcakes on rainy days.

"Peril, lonelieness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy, and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star."

-Charlotte Bronte (from Villette)

hearty: two definitions.

A Man's Man.
from here


I made this, I ate this with marmalade, and learned soda bread is so easy.
And Seeded Soda Bread from 101 Cookbooks

"Rest is not idleness,

and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day,

listening to the murmur of water or watching the clouds float across the sky

is by no means a waste of time."

John Lubbock