Hello from the Big Woods!: Welcome! Coming soon, my blog from my little house in the big woods of beautiful Sandwich, New Hampshire, in the sweet spot where the Lakes Region meets the White Mountains. I’ve always been a country girl at heart, and I’ve lived in … Continue Reading →
Deluge
Our fourth annual black-fly-escape trip to North Carolina in May started with a soggy stay on Assateague Island in Maryland and only one far-off wild pony sighting. We had ponies grazing by the Casita last year, but this year the … Continue Reading →
Fire!
I was sitting with my mother on her porch having afternoon tea when my neighbor/sister-in-law/friend Diane came flying through the door saying, “I need you NOW!” I jumped into her car along with two children and we careened up my … Continue Reading →
Country Roads
You can tell a lot about a town by looking at signs along the road. Sandwich is an eclectic collection of folks who all share the dry humor that is ubiquitous to New England. Take this sign along the … Continue Reading →
Signs of Spring
Three nearly back-to-back Nor’Easters have restored the snowpack here in Sandwich, New Hampshire, but it’s officially spring now, and the signs are clear. Longer days (and daylight savings time) mean that we’re fixing supper while it’s still light out, and … Continue Reading →
Timber!
Winter is firewood season in these parts; not only do we burn it in our wood stoves to keep our homes cozy and our pipes from freezing, but at the same time we harvest wood for next winter. The snowy … Continue Reading →
Icing
Have you ever heard a refrigerator referred to as an icebox? (It’s a grandma thing.) We have friends who live “off the grid,” independent of public utilities — solar panels for electricity, heating exclusively with wood, and cooling the old … Continue Reading →
Deep Freeze
We’ve been in the deep freeze lately, with temperatures below zero or in the single digits most of the time. The high next Saturday is forecast to be -10f and the low -20f. Throw in the windchill factor, and we … Continue Reading →
Lilac: A Love Story
It’s understandable that farmers tend to keep a lot of emotional distance between themselves and animals that are raised for food. If a pig is given a name, it should be “Bacon” or the like. In the past, Booty Family … Continue Reading →
Cooking School
When Todd and I first moved from our big house in Denver to our little house in the big woods of rural New Hampshire, our great niece Elsa was just two years old. She turned three that summer, and in the fall, I … Continue Reading →
Garlic!
Fall is bulb-planting season, and at Booty Family Farm, that means garlic and lots of it! Well, technically it’s cloves that are planted to grow bulbs. They get started in the cool of fall, take a nap during the cold … Continue Reading →

