Busy, busy, busy is an understatement, but with all that can be accomplished during the short growing season between late May and early September it’s hard to slow down. With the abundance of wildlife, flowers, food and herbs, both medicinal and culinary, there is a constant barrage of things to pick, dry, can, shoo, photograph, repair, water, and feed. I plan to post a canning update soon for anyone needing a fix, complete with recipes.
The animals here are wonderful companions and always add personality to the homestead. This year there is a group of six crows that come and go. I know they are the same crows each time because one of them never learned to “caw-caw” like the other crows and instead quacks like a duck. That still makes me smile every time. :-) Continue reading Peak Summertime at Chez Cog→
It's amazing that the ultimate authority on fighting and victory lived more than 2500 years ago. In his work the Art of War, Sun Tzu explains the 'supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.'
In today's complicated modern world, it seems this philosophy continues to reign while much of the so-called civilized world is being subdued without a shot being fired. Sun Tzu also said, 'know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.'
Perhaps in our social media dominated technological society we should spend a bit more time getting to really know ourselves so that we too might defeat our enemy without fighting. For further insight please read: The Art of Fighting Without Fighting.
So there I was, caught in a bramble of sharp blackberry thorns coming from every direction. I’d been snagged first by the swooping thorn from high up that caught my hair, then by two more barbed branches that grabbed my pants and arm as I tried to retreat. Having left the house in an overconfident manner, thinking it was like any other day, I had no urgency to remember my phone, a sidearm or my small pruning shears to cut my way out. Cog was at work and there was no one for miles to hear me scream should the black bear come by for a late blackberry lunch.
