The steward of Patterdale Hall, Chris Wyatt. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
The Patterdale Hall Diaries | Death and taxes
- Published: July 22, 2025
By Chris Wyatt
May 26, 2025
Up bright and early.
Morris is off to a park in Western Pennsylvania, so he left the house all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7:30 this morning. It is a beautiful morning, and I shall grab some coffee from Dino’s, then walk little Archie. I think digging a pepper bed is definitely on the cards for today. We have let things get a little wild, but as I’m not teaching for a while, I now have time for some gentle pottering in the gardens. The beds will need feeding with well-rotted manure, wood ash and some wood pulp from a completely rotten tree that Karen has broken apart. Jim’s soil is very good, but it does pack down into clay unless it’s tended to every year. We have been lazy in this regard. Well, I have been lazy; Karen snapped her ankle and wasn’t able to really do anything for a year. She couldn’t even get up if she knelt down but has discovered that now she can kneel, dig, plant, and then actually get back on her feet. Progress.
I’m in two minds about the peppers. I think I will grow super-hot peppers. Karen had great success with Trinidadian scorpion peppers four years ago, and it would be nice to grow those again. Morris loves them and we can freeze them easily for use in chili. Morris would take very spicy chili or curry to school for lunches, and even though he is done with school, I see no reason to stop making him food and freezing it in bags for emergency lunches or dinners.
I have been writing the Patterdale Hall Diaries for about two-and-a-half years now and have just hit 50,000 words. Twenty-thousand words per year is a nice sedate pace, and it doesn’t feel forced. However, I have noticed that I have begun to repeat myself a little more often than I would like. It’s time to chat to my editors, Juliana and Reilly, to get me back on track.
Perhaps I’ll take a break for a month and just enjoy a sunny June. Then, perhaps I’ll write all about it.
May 30, 2025
I took some peonies to Shawnee yesterday. It’s two weeks later than last year, but that isn’t surprising; it has rained an awful lot. It will be nice to get some sunny June days.
Today, I am holed up at home in Yellow Springs with a sleepy, grumpy little dog. It’s very peaceful when it rains, and I will probably do some cooking. I have all the ingredients for a chicken and spinach curry, I just need some motivation. Maybe I’ll be motivated if I have another cup of tea.
June 4, 2025
I went with super-hot peppers. Scorpion peppers are in the ground, and Carolina reapers are in a big pot. I have put deer netting around the tomatoes and will protect the peppers shortly. The netting works very well, deer hate it and it is extremely cheap. I’d advise folk to buy it at the hardware store, but our small-town hardware store is closing.
This is an enormous shame, as it was a terrific little store. I should definitely try and get the machetes sharpened before it closes for good.
June 6, 2025
My friend Juliana Crask edited the diary over the course of the last month. She made approximately 1,000 changes to grammar and sentence structure, which is pretty humbling. However, it’s important work, and I will learn a lot from going through the writing line by line, page by page. Summer will now be spent peering at paper and screens, reconciling the edited document with the original manuscript.
Yesterday, I went through the diary and made sure all the dates and temperatures were the same format. The fun never stops.
June 10, 2025
Almost two months to the day I went back into another diverticulitis flare and back into hospital. I really need surgery.
I can’t live like this.
June 14, 2025
Like death and taxes, Street Fair is here again.
Bob is slinging pizza at Ha Ha, Morris is washing dishes at The Winds, Karen is in her studio and I’m at home doing laundry, cooking, listening to music, chatting to the dog, and reading “The Wind in the Willows.” It’s a lovely book. Kenneth Grahame was the governor of the Bank of England, and the tales in it were bedtime stories for his son Alastair, which is very sweet.
Anyway, as the world burns, reading “The Wind in the Willows” will allow me some peace. Rats, moles and badgers don’t unleash missile attacks on nuclear facilities, or finagle military parades for their birthday. Not even Mr. Toad would go that far.
The Hall is all tidy, and it looks like we are in for yet another week of rain. It’s warming up now though, and so the rain is pretty tropical. Hot wet weather is absolutely perfect for all the crops, especially the peppers. My jobs are simple: I need to keep feeding everything nutrients, and I need to keep the weeds down. Easy.
June 15, 2025
I appear to have post-Street Fair malaise. Although, to be fair, I also had pre- and per-Street Fair malaise. I think it is a combination of these antibiotics, and the rainy weather we have forecasted.
Rainy weather doesn’t usually affect my spirits, but this is the month I have elected to take as down-time, and I’d rather the weather was glorious.
*Originally from Manchester, England, Chris Wyatt is an associate professor of neuroscience, cell biology and physiology at Wright State University. He has lived in Yellow Springs for 18 years, is married and has two children and an insane Patterdale terrier.
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