Piccalilli
piccalilli |'pika,lile’| noun (plural piccalillies or piccalillis) a relish of chopped vegetables, mustard and hot spices
At Home in NH
Once More, and Always, to the Lake
People who spend a lot of time on a lake—whether year-round or every summer or for just one much-anticipated week every year—tend to feel possessive about it.
Heaven on Earth
My husband calls them New Hampshire potatoes, the hundreds of rocks we pick from our garden every spring, heaved to the surface by winter’s churn of frost and thaw. We’ve been planting here for twenty-five years. My in-laws turned over…
Sustaining a Family Cottage
Although I came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I have always thought of myself as a child of the Depression. My Depression-era mother schooled me in saving anything that could be used again and making do…
Snug
Last fall, a band of nimble men descended on our house. They ripped off crumbling shingles, tore up rotten plywood and installed a new metal roof, guaranteed for fifty years, considerably longer than I—at age sixty-five—expect to need it. Standing…
A Home's Last Renovation
My last act of renovation—if it can be called that—will be to find a good steward for this house going forward.
Sweet Summer Berries
As a forager from a long line of foragers, nothing pleases me more than finding wild berries. I will scale a small mountain for low-bush blueberries that ripen in high summer just short of the peak. Sometimes abandoned roads pass…
Becoming a Gardener
I used to be an herbicidal maniac. Woe betides any plant that found itself under the deadly-by-default care of my gangrene thumbs. Then, with the purchase of our home in 2013, my husband and I inherited a bountiful 50-foot-by-150-foot garden…
A Hard Rain
Last August as I was driving home, I got caught in a ferocious thunderstorm. The rain was falling so heavily, I could scarcely find a road I’ve taken for decades. The thunder was right overhead—it felt like you were inside…
Here and Now
My husband says I have a binary sense of time: “now” and “not now.” I prefer to think of myself as “exceptionally present.” This trait isn’t necessarily a good thing for a gardener. After all, a lot of gardening is…
Wilderness Treasures
On a spring day a few years ago, my husband and I went walking the trails in a wildlife management area near our town. The area is a bit overgrown, a place frequented by hunters in the fall. The meandering…
