Elizabeth Enslin
I’m a literary nonfiction writer, part-time yurt dweller, fourth-generation Oregonian, kitchen gardener, mother, anthropologist, and naturalist. I love frogs, snakes, bats, and the sound of coyotes howling. Some of my writing has been published in The Gettysburg Review, Crab Orchard Review, Fringe Magazine, Opium Magazine and others. I’m currently completing an ethnographic memoir – Sacred Threads – on my experiences as anthropologist, mother, and daughter-in-law working with a politically active Brahman family in rural Nepal. I’ve taught college and high school and currently serve part-time as a graduate advisor for the Master of Arts Program in Environmental Studies at Prescott College in Arizona.
By Elizabeth Enslin on August 29, 2010
It’s that time of year again, when my taste buds give up on peaches and berries and begin longing for crunchy pears and apples. We have a lovely old pear tree above the old homestead on our land. Every year, I wait for the pears to ripen… …and every year, the competition beats me to
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Posted in Homesteading, Sustainable Food, Wildlife Encounters | Tagged bears, fruit, photography, trees, wild |
By Elizabeth Enslin on July 6, 2010
Last week, I spent an afternoon in the old apple orchard to check out the bird nesting scene. The cows found this fascinating….
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Posted in Recent, Wildlife Encounters | Tagged birds, cows, photography, predators, reptiles, wild |
By Elizabeth Enslin on July 4, 2010
The house wrens nesting on our yurt porch chose this morning, the 4th of July, to shoo their young ones out of the nest.
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Posted in Recent, Seasons and Rituals, Wildlife Encounters | Tagged birds, holidays, Humor, nature, photography, wild |
By Elizabeth Enslin on June 11, 2010
With all the rain out over the last few weeks and the challenges of getting the summer garden in, I’ve been grateful for food that sprouts with no effort on my part. I might not want stinging nettles in my cultivated garden, but I like having a patch on a distant corner of our property.
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Posted in Recent, Sustainable Food, Sustainable Gardening, Wild Plants | Tagged food, Homesteading, nature, Sustainable Gardening, wild |
By Elizabeth Enslin on June 4, 2010
Rain. Day before last, it was relentless. We had a reprieve yesterday, and I got some planting done, but most of my garden is flooded and impossible to work. I’m already a week or two behind. In this short season, that could mean a lean year for vegetables. So when I woke at five this
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Posted in Recent, Sustainable Food, Sustainable Gardening, World Travel | Tagged food, Nepal, patience, Sustainable Gardening |
By Elizabeth Enslin on May 28, 2010
People often ask me what it’s like to live in a yurt. As I wrote in an essay published in The Smoking Poet last Fall, much of the living goes on around the yurt rather than in it. And that’s as it should be with a shelter traditionally used by nomads. Take the shower. There’s
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Posted in Homesteading, Recent, Yurt Living | Tagged beauty, Homesteading, photography, yurts |
By Elizabeth Enslin on May 23, 2010
I’m ecstatic to be back on our property in Northeastern Oregon. There’s lots to do: organizing inside the yurt to make cooking and storage more convenient, building a spring box and laying pipe to get potable water into the yurt, putting in the garden. And there are many challenges: a muddy road, cars that get
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Posted in Images, Recent, Sustainable Food, Wild Plants, Yurt Living | Tagged beauty, Homesteading, photography, Sustainable Gardening, wild |
By Elizabeth Enslin on April 30, 2010
Today is Save the Frogs Day. Over 2000 species are threatened with extinction….
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Posted in Biodiversity, Politics and History, Recent | Tagged amphibians, political action, wild |
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