I’ve been given honey twice in the past few weeks. What a wonderful gift! It’s a gift that has been given twice. People gave it to me, but bees gave it to them. Some new friends, Amber Nicole and Paul, gave us a jar of Mad Urban Bees honey. http://www.madurbanbees.com/ […]
Last July, Doug and I joined the timber-raising of one the carpenters who helped build Underhill House. (Check it out in my post Timberframing with Friends: Sweat, Love and a Little Drama. ) Prairie and his partner Lindsey are restoring an old farmhouse. The back of the house proved too far […]
The making of Underhill House was also the destruction of all but the most rugged organisms living in the soil around it. We moved here in January, and as soon as the snow melted, I was counting the days till I could start to heal the earth outside our walls. […]
Saturday October 5, Underhill House will be part of the National Solar Tour — the world’s largest grassroots solar event. We are so thrilled to part of a coalition of over 5,500 home and business owners, volunteers, solar installers, public officials and grassroots organizations who conduct open house tours of […]
Doug and I have had several houses with shingle roofs and even lived in a house with a thatched roof in the Netherlands, but a living roof is a whole new beast. In fact, it seems a lot like having a pet. To learn more about our sodded roof, check […]
When Doug was hiking in Nepal years ago, he saw many examples of how the people in that steep land terrace the garden beds they depend on. We decided to do the same on our own slanty land. Fortunately, our rock wall builder still had a few more rocks that […]
There are many trees holding up our house that I remember with the same detail. Where they stood, why we selected them, working on finishing them, watching them come together into the timber frame of Underhill House. It’s easy to forget how much we rely on these amazing plants. The […]
One of the unexpected outcomes of building Underhill House was the bond that formed between our building crew members, and Doug and me. For some of the crew our project was the first time they’d worked together. This amazing team generated lasting friendships. Getting together this weekend to help Prairie […]
Doug and I have just returned from a week of visiting his mom in Seattle. Dorothy loves flowers, and when she lived in Wisconsin, we used to bring her bouquets from the Dane County Farmers Market throughout the growing season. I normally do not buy flowers through commercial outlets because […]
Want to make a significant difference in the world in a beautiful way? Plant native flowers! According to the Xercise Society, fruits and seeds derived from insect pollination are a major part of the diet of approximately 25 percent of all birds, and of mammals ranging from red-backed voles to […]
Digging in the Driftless 