Advice from a small town girl

I’ve always been attracted to the concept of self-sufficiency. I think that’s the underlying reason my garden is stupidly huge.

Somewhere deep inside is the soul of my one of my forebears who were, according to my parents, ants instead of grasshoppers.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out Aesop’s fable.

I used to think I had been born in the wrong century. Whenever modern life got too complex, I would retreat in my imagination to the late 1800s, about the time my great-grandparents arrived from Scandinavia.

Never mind all those things that I can’t do without – programmable coffe...