Walking down the driveway this morning with Lucy to put out the mail, I was struck by the warmth which followed this week's rain.  Nevertheless, the creek bottom is following its natural late fall cycle --- squirrels are noisily chipping their way into tough black walnut shells and witch hazel has sent out its scraggly yellow blooms.

The warmth must have woken up the snakes as well.  Lucy didn't come immediately when I called since she was busy digging after her arch-nemesis in a junk pile.  She'd made me wait to begin the walk, so I had no compunction about making her wait in turn as I snapped photo after photo.  Our long-suffering Lucy quickly entered the routine, sinking into a sit as I found each new photo subject.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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