I live in the coastal mountains in northern California. My house is in a redwood forest, nestled in a mountain, along a meandering creek that joins a river rushing out to the ocean. This forest is part of the thin strip of redwoods along the Pacific coast, beginning at Monterrey…

I have lived in many homes along these creeks and rivers. I learned to choose houses that are well above the predicted 100 year flood line which is a notoriously unreliable gauge. They clung to canyons, along narrow, winding trails that passed for roads rising up the sides of the…

it’s all in your head they said. all wrapped up in imagination and flights of fancy all the silly things that don’t matter that didn’t happen that way. perhaps you misunderstood they said to assure themselves that they are right or just to make sure that you are wrong. these…

Only a few hardy souls live here and my neighbors are welcoming but far between. This is a place where monthly trips along narrow winding roads that end at Target and other big box shopping centers for necessities is a custom we all know. …

It is the cool of winter in Northern California, and tucked in a dark forest of second growth redwoods is where my toddler daughter and I have found refuge. We have only come from a few miles away, yet it seems that we have gone a great distance to another…

In mourning the passing of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg it feels that not only did we lose an icon of the women’s movement, we are losing the efforts of an entire era of progress for women in the US. With her passing and the push to get her replacement installed as quickly…

Don’t get me wrong. I like kale. I use it in salads and love it with Swiss cheese and some honey mustard dressing as a low cost nutritious sandwich. …

In 1975 I learned to bake during the sugar shortage. I was the most unlikely and reluctant candidate for the position of housewife that ever graced a kitchen. While I was figuring out the housewife/mother thing, the steepest learning curve I climbed was managing a meager food budget meant to…

I blame my cholesterol. Eggs have been out of my diet for a while so the egg shortage is something that has not affected my diet in any drastic way during this pandemic. But eggs offer more than comfort at breakfast. They are used in baking for making cakes and…