Gorgeous Green Tomatoes

By Jill Henderson

Fall is in full swing and November is just around the bend.  Time to say goodbye to the fresh bounty of the summer garden and tuck everything in for the winter to come.   After the particularly tough growing season we just had, you won’t want to waste a single edible thing from the garden – and that includes green tomatoes!  With a little creativity, those crispy green orbs can be turned into an amazing array of sumptuous edibles.

Bob Ross and Titmice: A Meditation on Conservation

By Jill Henderson

Saturday morning I was curled up in a blanket watching Bob Ross paint a winter landscape on PBS.  I was enjoying his rapturous meditation on loving life and the subtle nuances of painting glacial mountains against a blue sky when a slight movement outside the window caught my eye. Like a cat to a bit of bright yarn, my eyes were immediately drawn to a silky grey titmouse flirting in the low branches of the oak tree.

Aiming to Transform

By Greg Swick

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”  – Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Fall Frenzy: A Skink Story

By Jill Henderson – Show Me Oz –

Fall is one of my favorite seasons, but it is also one of the busiest. Between winterizing the garden, gathering wild edibles, bringing in firewood, and generally readying ourselves and the homestead for the winter to come, it seems to me that we have been in perpetual motion – a frenzy, if you will.  A word that seems to convey just a touch of obsessive compulsive behavior that can sometimes lead to strains, and bruises and bumps.  But we humans are not the only creatures driven to frenzy in our preparations for the coming winter.  In fact, sometimes the frantic nature of animals searching for food, mates and shelter lands them in a slippery situation.