Doughnuts for breakfast again. We made a quadruple batch the other day, Everett and I, and the four of us have been going through them by the dozen. Whole wheat, eggs, and buttermilk weigh in against brown sugar and deep-frying. Are the doughnuts healthy food? In comparison to white-flour doughnuts they have the edge, but I don’t suppose they are actually nutritious. We indulge anyway.

Sometimes readers write me, asking for recipes for the dishes I prepare. So here, this time you won’t have to:

Whole Wheat Doughnuts

2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 c brown sugar
2/3 c sour cream or buttermilk
1 tsp bkg soda
3 c whole wheat flour

Beat eggs till light; add salt and sugar. Beat till thick and smooth. Mix soda with buttermilk or sour cream and add to first mixture. Add flour until dough is of consistency to handle. Roll on floured board, cut with doughnut cutter and fry in deep fat. Drain on brown paper.

(Eat, Drink and Be Healthy — The Joy of Eating Natural Foods, by Agnes Toms, 1963. This is a great little recipe book.)

***

A loud wind blew up last night just as I was reading about the elementals in a book called Green Witchcraft, by Anne Moura. Even down in our basement bedroom, the sound was frightening. The author was saying that the power of the elemental forces — air, water, earth, fire — is stupendous, as we all know, and that they are neither to be “summoned” nor “dismissed” during rituals or spellcasting. Right. Got it.

To do rituals and spells as a Wiccan, one apparently addresses the Lord and Lady as well as communing with the elementals. It strikes me that practising Wicca would be like practising Christianity, in some ways. As with Christian prayer, I would go through the motions genuinely and hopefully, but without absolute faith that anyone is listening. It is the simple exercise of speaking from the heart to an imagined loving presence that understands and cares; that is what benefits me.

***

Scott told me that one of the cows died. I asked what happened.

“She must have gotten onto her back somehow,” he said.

“What, cows are like turtles and can’t get off their backs?” I was finding this difficult to believe.

“She must have bedded down on a slope and rolled onto her back somehow, so she couldn’t get up.”

“She committed suicide?” I said lightly, but it was taken amiss.

“It’s not funny,” he said. “She was a young, healthy animal.”

“I know it's not funny. It’s just — I didn’t know that could happen to cows. It seems a little absurd to me.”

“The weight of her stomachs would put pressure on her lungs so that she’d suffocate,” he explained.

“Weird. I mean, that they can’t roll off their backs.”

***

Doughnuts, witchcraft, and cattle. My life is a fascinating hodgepodge. Jealous?