Skip to content

Tag Archives: Ken Ilgunas

An abbey literary update

Ken’s third book, This Land Is Our Land, has been in the final editing stages here at the abbey and is due at the publisher, Penguin Random House, next week. The book is scheduled for release in March 2018. When the idea for this book was hatched last April, Ken was here at the abbey, […]

2014 garden, off and running

The long-range forecast calls for normal-ish temperatures and above-normal precipitation, so Ken planted the early garden today. Spring has sprung. I hope.

About those $10 eggs

Last week, Ken told me that he saw eggs at Whole Foods that cost more than $10 a dozen. I just had to see that for myself, so today I looked for them in the egg section. The most expensive eggs I saw were $7.99 a dozen. But, luckily, Whole Foods’ egg guy was there […]

Feeding the worms

The garden plot with compost freshly tilled in … and the chickens working it Increasingly we think less in terms of fertilizing plants and more in terms of feeding the worms, on the grounds that if your worms are abundant and well fed, the plant life will flourish. Part of this process is compost. The […]

New gate for the new chicken lot

As of sunset today, the chickens’ new habitat is ready. They now have three grazing and scratching areas, each separated by gates: the garden, the orchard, and a section of woods. Six chickens can do a great deal of damage to grass, and we want the strongest possible turf in the orchard. When it became […]

Spring fever

Picking up rocks in the garden Winter’s back is broken. The temperature today reached 68 degrees. The daffodil shoots are a couple of inches high. While I have been recovering from minor surgery, Ken has a serious case of spring fever. This morning he washed all the windows, inside and out. Then we measured for […]

Rocking chair rehab

I apologize for going so long without posting. I’ll blame it on the weather — first freezing cold, with some water problems, followed by heavy rain. January has been dreary so far. But today was fairly nice, and Ken got started on a project that I’m happy to see come up in the queue: the […]

Vole control: the fire

A vole flees the fire in the wildflower patch. There were two voles hiding under the brush pile when Ken lit it on fire. As soon as they perceived what was going on, they ran to another brush pile a few feet away that was waiting to be burned. “Poor things,” said Ken. But we […]

Vole control

A vole runway Ken said that, when he was pulling up dead stalks from one of the wildflower patches yesterday, a vole sat and looked at him for a while, as though to say, “What are you doing to my neighborhood?” Of all the many little creatures that live around (and off of) the abbey, […]

Fugue in Ursa Major: now in the proofing stage

My novel, Fugue in Ursa Major, is now in the final stages of production. Proof copies are being printed this week. As soon as the proof copies arrive, I’ll immediately get them to my distinguished first readers. And are my first readers ever distinguished! They are: — Ken, already known to readers of this blog. […]