I love to write, cook, garden, and learn in equal parts, and when we bought this house the responsibility of an orchard, an olive grove, a kitchen garden, flower beds, and a would-be truffle grove, felt like the perfect way to bring all of that together—and write about it. I’m writing this for myself, as a record of this new adventure, but fellow travelers (and guest posts) are welcome.
I have been a professor of writing for most of my adult life, with spells in sales, bar tending, waiting tables, childcare, and retail management in my early years. I was born in the UK and while in high school I worked on a farm caring for horses (which I loathed), and picked fruit for a large agrochemical conglomerate every summer, starting with strawberries in June and ending with apples in September (which I mostly loved, aside from all the chemicals). In college in the UK, I joined a work exchange program (before the Schengen Agreement) and worked one summer on the grape harvest in South West France (near Narbonne). Another exchange program got me to the US one summer working as a camp counsellor in Central NY state. While this latter experience helped to shape my decision to attend graduate school in the US, the former had an impact in my decision about where to retire and what to do with my time there (the fact that my mother-in-law lives a few houses away from us and my husband spent every summer here played a role, too). Both of my grandfathers were gardeners, starting with wartime “victory gardens” and then continuing and teaching my mother and me a love of growing the food you eat.
