The weekend is a good time for grazing. This is a summary of some of the delightful Blog articles I have been reading during the week. I invite you to graze through these, and also through the archives of the creative writers who wrote them.

Food canning equipment, tool carts, compost bins, growing kits, cider and fruit presses, the Squeezo Strainer, food dehydrators, juicers, smokers, cold frames, greenhouses and so many more innovations contribute to making our lives organized and healthier and to turning our homes and properties into an oasis where the living is good.

All of these things exist because we are creative and because we have a unique ability to adapt to our environment. In truth, foodies, homesteaders and gardeners who write about their experiences are telling the ongoing story of our inventive spirit. On their pages, every tool and appliance is like a paint brush; ready to express a new vision.

You can access the entire Weekend Highlights series to date by clicking on that category in the sidebar at left.

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Let’s pay a visit to Cecilia. There is much happening at The Kitchen’s Garden lately. I invite you to read, “New Lambs: Meet Minty, Meadow and The Murphy.”

“I… pulled a sweatshirt over my nightie with yoga pants underneath, dragged on my gumboots and popped out to check Mama again before beginning the mornings work. I walked into bedlam. There were four lambs born. Two flat-out on the straw and not moving and two struggling to their feet… She had… her lambs without me, the last one had been born just before I stepped around the corner of the barn… [Read Full Article]

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The Townhouse Homesteaders appeared at Granny’s Parlour recently to browse our selection of articles. Thanks to this, I came upon their article titled, “What I’ve Learned from The Hunger Games.” If you are of a certain age and without children, like yours truly, you may have no idea what are the Hunger Games, but you will promptly understand that we are speaking of books and you may feel tempted to read them as well.

How often do we stop and actually apply ideas we encounter while reading fiction? The thought may cross our minds on the spur of the moment, but how often do we actually take action? The author has done just this. In this lighthearted, inquisitive article, she suggests that a novel could provide guidance for real, every-day living. The Blog is a journal, where the author ponders the every-day lessons and experiments of developing a homestead lifestyle in an urban setting.

The “About” page sets the stage for the entire Blog: “Since getting married, we have developed a growing interest in homesteading. The causes for this interest are different for each of us… Our only problem was, and continues to be, our location. We live in a 1280 sq.ft. townhouse in the suburbs. Not quite the cottage and bucolic tract of land your mind conjures when thinking of homesteading. But one of the tenets of homesteading is to make do with what you have…” [Continue Reading]

On to the selected article: “Jon and I read The Hunger Games trilogy a few weeks ago.  I know we’re behind the times. I have to say, despite my initial reluctance, I thoroughly enjoyed the books… I wouldn’t last more than 48 hours in the arena and that’s if I got lucky. Really lucky. Like my district was Hogwarts and my token was an invisibility cloak lucky. Wait, I’m mixing up my teen fiction… [Read Full Article]

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Miss Read Has Died, Long Live Miss Read
We seem to be having a book theme today!

Curtiss Ann Matlock offers a heartfelt reflection on the author known as Miss Read, who has passed recently, as well as her writing style and its impact on readers. “I had not thought of the Miss Read books for years, until last Friday, when I happened upon her Thrush Green among the stacks at a used book store. It was this same Friday that the Times article on Miss Read was published…” writes Matlock as she also recalls such authors as Alexander McCall-Smith and Jan Karon. ” These books… deal with all manner of human struggle…” [Read Full Article]

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Finally, a random selection. I actually flipped a coin on this one, to silence the inner voice that would like to feature every single blog I read. It is not a typical coin. The side that decides features a lighthouse. It shun its light on The Middlest Sister, where I (almost) randomly selected, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel.”

“…While I was at my parents’ house, I had a chance to go through all the schoolwork and drawings my mother saved over the years… Here’s one of the drawings I found, a self-portrait Ashley did with our cat Rapunzel…” [Read Full Article]

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Thank you for stopping by to read this Weekend’s Review. Please take a moment to leave a few words on the Blogs you enjoy, if you feel so inclined that is.