Kitchen Home News

"Come with prong, and come with fork, Like the devil of their talk, And with wildly rattling sound, Prowl the desert rocks around! Screechowl, owl, Join in chorus with our howl!" ~exerpt from The First Walpurgis Night (1835) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The owls have been calling.  The dragons (in boat form) have come out onto the water. I've even come across a serpent by the riverside, sunning itself in the unseasonable heat. The in-between time is here again.  While others excitedly watch the snow melt and give thanks for the green returning, we are already watering our lawns and gardens here in the desert end of The Valley.  We are at the tipping point of summer already. Spring has been a lightening bolt. A bright flash of color, and now the blossoms have become leaves and the strawberries are rapidly forming tiny fruit. Even the flowers blooming this time of year speak of liminal spaces (if you buy into flower symbolism and magic.)  According to Tess Whitehurst'

The rains have come to The Valley and everything is madness. Each blossom, leaf, catkin, and every other thing holding tightly to itself in bud form, has burst forth in exuberance and sweet relief.  It will not be this green, this sweet-smelling again.   Saskatoon berry blossoms I could hear the frogs long before I reached them today.  And when I did arrive at the pond, their calls were so loud that I was entirely overcome.  I stood there for ages, swaying like a crazy person, drunk on the sound echoing in my ears.  So very quickly, as if it wanted to join them, my heartbeat matched the song of the frogs.  croak-croak thump-thump  I'd still be there rocking back and forth, my heart singing with the inhabitants of that pond, if someone hadn't stopped on the road above the river to look down at the strange girl keeling from side to side. I must have looked like I was having an episode. I waved and continued my walk, but I swear that my heart is still back there somewhere by the w

I've been running amok in the spring weather that we have been gifted here in the west. I've spent the last few weeks planting cold-hardy veggies and watching the perennials wake from their winter sleep.  There is a good lot of magic happening in the gardens right now and I can barely stand to be inside.  There is still office work, and there has been much spring cleaning, but I get outside as often as I can to breathe in the scent of the earth stirring. There are many tales to be told of spring and new life, but for now I'm just leaving a few notes on some things that are tickling my fancy this week. ~ We are on the verge of a full moon and a lunar eclipse.  Tomorrow night and early into Tuesday morning, I'll be out watching the moon turn red.  For those of you in the west running on Pacific time with me, that means we'll see the partial eclipse by about 11pm, the full eclipse around midnight on Monday, and the maximum eclipse hitting about 12:45am on Tuesday.  Adj