Blessed with more pears than anyone has the right to own, I decided to make pear butter. Never having done something before has never been a deterrent to me. So I began: I ran off a recipe. Of course when googling information, the first item the search turns up is the most reliable, right? This …[ read more ]

    Can you imagine living peacefully, running a successful business and having all of that ripped away simply because of your race?  The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 , nicknamed the Bloodhound Law, did just that. This law deemed that even if people of color had escaped or had been born free, they could be sent South based solely on …[ read more ]

Callie’s Corner             We often miss God’s abundance, even if it’s as clear as mud between our toes. Take Carol, for example. The other day I was taking her for a walk when she stepped into a mud puddle. I could understand her revulsion had she been wearing shoes, but she wore her Tevas. She …[ read more ]

Image by kmevans via Flickr            I discovered this fantastic diet quite by accident. Once more relying on my Garmin while visiting Paul’s Paradise near Albany, I got lost. A twenty minute drive took an hour and the grocery store I searched for had been washed away by Hurricane Irene. I ended up twenty minutes later in Cobleskill. …[ read more ]

All Things Literary (sorry NPR–If the paraphrase works–use it) Want to be a great writer? Follow these tips. Mark Twain is back by popular demand. Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream. Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t. Ideally a book would have no order to …[ read more ]