My Etsy shop is open!

Do you have ducks, chickens, raccoons, cats, rabbits, butterflies, moths and crows? If not, would you like some? I have them for sale in my brand new Etsy shop.

It doesn't seem possible that I've toiled over this shop all summer long, the amount of time it might have taken me to remodel a real bricks-and-mortar shop, but there it is. I've drawn and fussed and typed and photographed until my eyes have gone crossed and my buns have flattened in what could be an irreparable way.

The shop is open and stocked with prints and originals. More to come within the next couple weeks, including woodchucks, the sort of dog who pees on your Most Prized Plant, and notecards!

Zoe Tilley Poster on Etsy

Please do feed the wildlife

When farmers market and gardening season winds down, it's time to go on vacation! And that's where we've been. Matt was so pleased to be reunited with Lake Superior, he took off all his clothes and jumped in.

From Duluth, Minnesota, with Matt's dad and step mom, we drove to the end of the Gunflint Trail in the Boundary Waters, to wait out a night of wind and snow flurries at a lodge where Matt's friend works as a fishing guide. In the morning we had Close Encounters With Wild Foxes, which all revolved around buttered toast.

We paddled into Duncan Lake, and gathered firewood, and hiked on the Border Route Trail, overlooking Canada. I made acquaintance with the tiniest chipmunk I've ever seen, and offered him a small selection of mixed nuts and dried fruits, from which he chose two peanuts.

I'm pretty sure that Minnesotans don't normally haul along their winter tent when camping in the autumn, but if they are hosting a Pennsylvanian, they (very graciously) do. There is a little woodstove in the winter tent, which makes the whole experience deluxe. We kept cozy and cooked lots, and heard the sounds of the wild north country: owls, loons, wolves and wind.

Our new northland

We bought land! Click the weeds to make them bigger. The open space is ours, plus the nearer of the trees. The hills beyond are not ours, but we do get to look at them. I intend to do that, a lot - when it rains, when it's sunny, when it's cloudily dramatic, when my eyelashes are weighed down with snow. I intend to do it with coffee, with whiskey, in my underwear, and while walking my ducks.

We've been making a lot of trips to Vermont. We've been looking at a lot of acres, talking and weighing and searching, and now, we've gone and done it. This ten acres of gently sloping, southern facing stumpy scraggly northland is to be our home! On Monday we picnicked there with my parents, and spilled a few drops of champagne on the soil. We heard a rooster crowing, and the wind in the pines, and not much else. I am already a little bit in love.

This is the beginning of a long haul for us. While there is already a lot on this land - chickadees, asters, balsam firs, bear poop - you might notice there is no house. So we have to put that there. I intend to document the process here, so if you'll stick with me for a couple years, you can see the "after" picture then. (We'll remain in Scranton, at least part time, until it no longer seems practical.)

Hopsecutioner, or Hop Wallop?

That was Matt's question, standing in front of the refrigerator, considering nachos-on-the-porch night. It was a tough decision, so I made it for him. I said Hopsecutioner! because it sounded more brutal.

A dachshund

I love dachshunds! This one was was drawn in response to a call for illustrated breadhats by Loaf, a comics zine of "thick sliced fun" for kids.

Incidentally, I know someone of roughly this fellow's size and shape, named Ozzie, who is Unbelievably Cute, lives in the South, and Sometimes Wears Glasses.

The unexpected

Last week was full of little highs and lows. There were migrating monarchs on the ridge where we walk - more than I've ever seen... clouds of them billowing up off the Eupatorium when we passed, quickly settling back to their task of nectar foraging. Fifty feet down the path, kids tending a little fire, for their own task: burning the coating off rolls of electrical wire, to earn a few more cents per pound at the scrapyard.

I've been sitting here for ten minutes trying to explain my dismay, and the irony of the contrast, but when it comes down to it, all I can say is, This shitty old city.

Friends are getting married. Lots of them (but not all to each other). So there was and will be baking going on downstairs. M made little braids, wheat sheaves, ciabattas, dense ryes... Little sister made matcha cupcakes in black papers (gorgeous). I ran up and down the steps with coffee and frittata and toast... And on my way, out the window at eye level, I spied...

...a parakeet! On the porch railing, wet, green, and gold, and watching the rain.

Golden-podded peas

I resisted planting these golden-podded snow peas for years because I thought "golden" was a nice way of saying "a pukey pale sick color, which peas should never be." But then one day I had a fit along the lines of... This whole world and my entire life are completely out of control! And my decrepit old dog is pooping everywhere! And it seemed like the only thing I was in charge of was my overflowing seed storage, so I cleaned that. And I said to hell with it, I'll stick these stupid peas in the ground. And aren't I glad I did, now? Yes.