The Suburbs: What I’ll Miss

There are many things I will love about living in Chicago again. But as I am preparing to leave Bolingbrook, I’m focusing on saying goodbye to the things I’ve loved about this place. What will I miss? Plenty of things. Wide open spaces – cornfields, soccer fields, parking lots, no buildings over 3 stories, vistas across […]

Fall in the Neighborhood

Fall photos, taken mostly while walking the dog around our neighborhood. The farm where our vegetables come from – Green Earth Institute, and the head farmer, Steve Tiwald, who greets us every other Tuesday when we come by for our pick-up. Arugula, having been inspired by its neighbor, mint, taking over a garden plot (this stuff has amazing […]

Our Local Farm

Our weekly share of produce from Green Earth Institute farm. From the right: winter onions, salad turnips, spinach, snap peas, lettuce, tatsoi (an Asian green), and… a beagle. Green Earth Institute is just four miles from our house, in Naperville. It’s a 60-acre organic farm, complete with beautiful old stone farmhouse, and an island surrounded […]

Farms I Have Loved

This is a farm right down the street from our house. Well, sort of. It’s a couple miles away. An island of agriculture in a sea of Naperville suburban boilerplate. The farm interns always seem to look appropriately scruffy and disinterested when I come to pick up my veggie share. There’s also a wind turbine, lots […]

Back roads and silence

We drove out to Galena and back, yesterday and today. It’s a charming tourist town on the other side of the state. We belong to a meat CSA – we pay a subscription to a farm family and in return, every month we get a “share” of meats and eggs. We missed our delivery last […]