I want to wish a happy Mother's Day to everyone out there who mothers, in all the senses of the word. As someone who has not herself had any biological children, I know there are many opportunities in our world to mother, as I have had with my stepson, Zander. I've been in his life for half of it, and I like to think I've been a good influence on him. Stepmothers and other caretakers often get short shrift when it comes to the cult of motherhood, so let's not forget all the "mothers" in our lives today. Continue reading

Claire Schosser writes Living Low in the Lou, a blog chronicling her and her husband Mike's journey of reduced energy consumption and self-sufficiency. She opted for early retirement back in the mid-1990s (with Mike following in 2001) by reducing their expenses through living simply, growing much of their own food, and forgoing many of the shiny new conveniences that the rest of us take as givens. For those outside the area, "the Lou" is a popular nickname for St. Louis, Missouri. The Schosser/Gaillard homestead is located on a one-acre plot in suburban St. Louis and includes many mature, productive nut and fruit trees, an extensive annual garden, an herb garden, and a glassed-in front porch that functions as a greenhouse. Continue reading

Claire Schosser writes Living Low in the Lou, a blog chronicling her and her husband Mike's journey of reduced energy consumption and self-sufficiency. She opted for early retirement back in the mid-1990s (with Mike following in 2001) by reducing their expenses through living simply, growing much of their own food, and forgoing many of the shiny new conveniences that the rest of us take as givens. For those outside the area, "the Lou" is a popular nickname for St. Louis, Missouri. The Schosser/Gaillard homestead is located on a one-acre plot in suburban St. Louis and includes many mature, productive nut and fruit trees, an extensive annual garden, an herb garden, and a glassed-in front porch that functions as a greenhouse. Continue reading

Claire Schosser writes Living Low in the Lou, a blog chronicling her and her husband Mike's journey of reduced energy consumption and self-sufficiency. She opted for early retirement back in the mid-1990s (with Mike following in 2001) by reducing their expenses through living simply, growing much of their own food, and forgoing many of the shiny new conveniences that the rest of us take as givens. For those outside the area, "the Lou" is a popular nickname for St. Louis, Missouri. The Schosser/Gaillard homestead is located on a one-acre plot in suburban St. Louis and includes many mature, productive nut and fruit trees, an extensive annual garden, an herb garden, and a glassed-in front porch that functions as a greenhouse. Continue reading

This spring's been an exciting time for us here at Brunette Games, with a slew of anniversaries and promotions across the team. Continue reading

As the bees come out this spring, your thoughts might return again to how to help these crucial pollinators. And when I say help them, I really mean help ourselves, since we utterly depend on them to pollinate our food plants. Well, here are two ways you can do this right now: 1) by participating in a backyard bee survey called Shutterbee and/or 2) simply planting more pollinator-supporting plants this spring. Continue reading

Lisa Brunette's award-winning mystery series, The Dreamslippers, is featured this month in the 'Foodie Lit' section of the Expand the Table blog. Author Susan Weintrob reads and reviews books, offering her review in tandem with a recipe on Foodie Lit. She chose to pair the first novel in the series, Cat in the Flock, with a recipe for eggs Benedict done three ways. It's a dish main character Cat McCormick enjoys on a date in one of the book's tragicomic scenes. Continue reading

Say you dream of a homestead of your own but have no idea how to go about getting one. You need land, but that's expensive; you need skills, but those are hard to come by. What if I told you there was a program designed to get both? Continue reading

Our garden was featured recently in a story about Shutterbee, the citizen science program to study bees and determine the effects of native plant conservation efforts on local populations. Lisa volunteered as a bee surveyor last summer, making eight observations rounds for a total of 73 bee sightings across 22 different species. You can read the full story on the Webster Journal website, including video footage of not just our bee-friendly garden but several other bee survey sites and the Shutterbee lab. The interview gave Lisa an opportunity to talk about the benefits of volunteering in such a study: Continue reading

As a welcome gift in honor of National Poetry Month, all new subscribers to our blog newsletter throughout the month of April will automatically receive a FREE ebook copy of Lisa Brunette's award-winning book of poetry, Broom of Anger. Continue reading

It's become fashionable these days to reach for trendy eco-solutions, such as opting for a hybrid gas/electrical vehicle or becoming a vegan. I'm guilty as charged - we still own a Toyota Prius, and I was a vegetarian for about 13 years, and a vegan for a good portion of that. However, as is the case with a lot of shiny new objects, they might not do any more good than the original thing they replaced, or the gain is minimal at best and usually involves some tradeoff. Continue reading

Springtime is a great point in the year to remember the gardener in your life - yes, even if the only gardener in your life is you! As the soil warms up enough for seeds, and bare bark begins to leaf out, we gardeners get ridiculously busy and might not have time for self care as we're busting sod and ripping open seed packets. Even if there's no gift-excuse day coming up, like a birthday or anniversary, a sweet little basket of gardening gifts is just the thing. Continue reading

I've been tossing around the word 'permaculture' to describe some of the activities Anthony and I are engaged in here on the suburban farmstead. As it's not a mainstream way of gardening (and way of life) yet, I thought it might be helpful to define it. Continue reading

I've had the privilege of sharing my home with four dogs and four cats over the course of my life, and Chaco is definitely the most entertaining. As this includes a poodle who had the odd habit of 'hanging' his turds on plants instead of depositing them on the ground like a normal pet, that's saying a lot. Continue reading

We're pleased to announce the winners of our book giveaway. Two lucky subscribers each received a signed paperback copy of Tammi Hartung's book, The Wildlife-Friendly Vegetable Gardener. Winners Lynne Griffin and Lila McClellan are avid gardeners and nature lovers, and they also both live in Colorado, a landscape that can be a challenge as much as it is a joy for gardeners. We're excited to share their stories and images with you. Continue reading

It's been a long, hard year with this COVID situation, and let's face it: We couldn't have done it without our pets. Continue reading

You might remember that super-popular post from last year on taking found items you might have lying around your basement or garage and repurposing them as bird baths. It was the No. 1 article from 2020 and the fifth most popular read of all time here at Cat in the Flock. Well, when I shared it over with my online permaculture community, aka, the 'permies,' I was thrilled to see it inspire a couple of pretty cool extensions on the theme. Continue reading

Kicking off today and running through March 13 is Ebook Week at online publisher Smashwords, an awesome alternative to Amazon. We're offering deep discounts on The Dreamslippers Series ebooks - prices not seen since the series first launched in 2014! That includes all three novels in the series, as well as the boxed set collection of books plus the bonus novella. Continue reading

This past week, I attended Gateway Greening's Community Agriculture Conference. It was entirely virtual and took place in the evening, so I was able to participate around my full days running Brunette Games. I attended most of the conference sessions, only taking a break mid-week. The conference was free, though I did kick them a donation since I get so much out of the group's offerings, and this conference was just one example. Gateway Greening has been so kind as to upload all of the conference videos to YouTube, where you can watch them free until the first day of spring, March 20. Continue reading

When I showed you how to cook a perfect pot of stovetop rice every time, I mentioned that next up I'd demonstrate a quick-and-easy recipe for a crockpot rice dish. That dish is the Asian rice porridge known as congee. Never heard of it? Well, neither had I until a friend spirited me away to a delightful, unexpected place in Seattle's International District called the Purple Dot Cafe, where I had my very first bowl of this heavenly porridge. Continue reading

It's tempting to buy prepared foods, whether that's shelf-stable packaged stuff or frozen. We're all really busy of course, even if we're working from home these days because you know, working from home is still working. But what if I told you the only thing standing between you and healthy living was a mere 15-20 minutes of cooking time per week? Continue reading

We tend to think of gardening as a strictly warm-weather activity, not something to do during the winter months when the garden goes dormant, especially in climates that enjoy a full-on cold season, like here in the Midwest. During the decade I lived in the Seattle area, I found a certain quiet solace in the months of seemingly unending rain, as the winters were mild, the landscape electric green with moss. Here the green gives way to brown, and then white. That's a different kind of beauty, equally welcome. Continue reading

We've been meaning to post an update to the cast iron series for some time, as we ended up modifying our care and maintenance just a bit, and the result is pretty much the perfectly seasoned cast iron skillet. One way to test this is to fry an egg in the skillet and see if it can easily slide around on the skillet surface, as in the video above. Continue reading

Though I call the Midwest my home and the Pacific Northwest my second home, my writing chops were forged during the two years I attended graduate school for an MFA in creative writing at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida. That tropical locale made its mark on me in more ways than one. When I close my eyes and travel back to the Miami of my memories twenty years ago, I'm awash in sensations: the flash of shocking royal blue as a flock of wild macaws flies overhead; the salty scent of the sea breezes, carrying hints of spicy aromas from Caribbean flora; the staccato rhythms of samba, salsa, and Cuban rhumba blasting from open cabana bars and car windows. Continue reading

Last year was a lot of things that weren't good, but one silver lining for me was that it was also the year of the bee. Continue reading