All-star Blueberry Millet Muffins, a memory of Squash Blossom Natural Foods Store in Memphis, Tennessee

My almond-demerara shortbread is tender, crunchy, and delicious.

I’ve been making a version of this granola my entire life. As has my mother. And my grandmother. I’m delighted that so many people love it, and since its simply not economical for me to sell it— the ingredients are not inexpensive— I am delighted to give you my recipe and its riffs here.

I think the coyotes were my fault. I knew I shouldn't hide dead animals in my garbage, and after my first year, I quit, instead become adept at hurling lighter weight fauna and dragging the heavier ones. (I am stronger than I've ever been, living on a mountain, where walking uphill no longer feels unusual, or often even noticeable). So the coyotes were my fault, because I must have been feeding them.

There is so much death on a farm. I have killed so many things in my eight years here. I want to account for those deaths. I want to post the weekly bills of death on my hands. I want to paint a large canvas of the body of each mouse I've dropped from the trap and flung over the paddock fence for hens to eat. I want a reckoning. But first I want to finish the narrative that kills my sheep.

Desert longing is a trope— the improbability of desert life, the extremities, the vast silence.

Lovely Leicester Longwool lambs graze on our Virginia farm