My favorite purple sweater is turning green. It was one of Bob’s cast-offs. It went through the laundry a few years before we were even married, and came out of a hot wash fitting me perfectly. Like most old clothing, it has far more value than my new clothing, by virtue of the fact that […]
Blog On Hold: Dreams Under Construction
This has been an amazing year. We started 2015 wondering how we could keep our farm running, how we could keep the generations together, how we could bring in the help we needed. And we fought. And we cried. And we dreamt. And you, dear readers, dreamt with us. You shared our wishes, our prayers, our ideas, […]
Thanks Giving
As my daughter grows, I can shelter her less and less from the pains of the world. But maybe by unleashing her sorrow, one more heart will be free to look for peace. “Can’t you take steps any bigger than that?” Saoirse asks as we make our way down the hill on the dogs’ morning […]
Making Neighbors
Is it possible to stay neighborly if they’re detonating explosives next door? Don’t move to Upstate New York if you can’t abide the sound of gunfire. This time of year, it reverberates across every ridge top and echoes down every valley. It blasts out from the next field over, and the next porch over. I’m […]
Where does eternity go for supper?
In the death that signifies the end of the growing season, I wondered if I would ever know forever. Then I met it for dinner. Until it’s time to carve the turkeys, I work almost completely alone on the day of the community turkey supper. Bob is madly cleaning the house for some out-of-town guests […]
What kind of a friend am I?
How does friendship hold up in the face of social media and full lives? I am sitting with a group of mothers of infants and toddlers at my local co-op’s natural parenting meeting, wondering what kind of friend I am. I’ve known the group’s organizer, Meg, for several years. She asked me to come speak almost […]
The Pressure Canner
Farming and radical homemaking are great lifestyle choices….If you can avoid these pitfalls. It’s one o’clock in the morning. I’m walking through the kitchen, on my way to letting Nikki and Dusky out. After that, I need to draft the farm newsletter for the week. The moonlight streams in on the kitchen table, blanketed with […]
The Unattainable
Some things seem beyond reach… But only because we’ve forgotten how to stretch ourselves. My friend Nancy and I have brought Saoirse and Ula to a nearby art museum for an exhibit of Maxfield Parrish’s paintings. Saoirse is wandering the gallery with a notebook, gazing at the pictures and writing down story ideas. Ula […]
The Math Problem
We couldn’t see a way forward to keep the family farm profitable, afford the labor, and work through our transition. We found the answer in the mail. When’s somebody ever gonna buy that place? I shake my head as we head home past the post office building that sits in the center of our little hamlet of […]
Duct Tape
How I got duct tape in my hair. And why I’m leaving it there. Shannon Hayes It is two o’clock Saturday morning. Yes, I should be sleeping. The kids are sleeping down at the farm with Grammie and Pop Pop. Bob and I need to leave for our farmers’ market at 6:30. But I’m sitting in […]
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