If I had to pinpoint a start for the latest battle, I guess I’d have to say it was the plum pudding. I sent an email last week to Mom, going over the menu for Christmas day, specifically asking her to make my Holiday Pudding recipe that doesn’t call for any grains. She called me […]
A Green Tea Take on Obama Care
I was sixteen when my mom figured out that one of her friends was being abused by her husband. Mom did what she could. She tried to talk to her friend. She got her phone numbers for shelters and domestic violence hotlines. She proposed escape plans. And then, one night, we received […]
Hospitality as a Command performance
I like sitting. Or, at least, I like the idea of it. While I’m pretty oblivious to most aspirational magazines and catalogs that I stumble across, I do find myself drawn to flip through the pages of anything featuring home furnishings. I have no desire for a new couch, better dinnerware, a patio dining set […]
Facing the Slaughter
This morning, before the sun rises over the mountain ridge, Mom and Dad will be out in the back field, quietly gathering up broilers, loading them into crates, putting them on the back of the Mule, and driving them over to the processing shed, where Bob and Clint will join them, throw back a […]
Competing Joys
Opting for a life of gainful unemployment, one directed by entrepreneurial, agricultural and other pursuits of the heart, prompts a lot of questions from folks who are curious about it. And the one that comes most frequently is, “what are the greatest challenges?” I think I know the answers they are anticipating: working long […]
Tues Post: Taking Time
I’m not much of a drinker, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a time and a place for it. For me, that would be a dirty martini with Bob on the front deck on Saturday evening after our farmers’ market ends. Since our long market day starts early, Bob is absolved from Saturday evening chores, […]
22 Saturdays
The rain was slapping down on the windshield with an uncharacteristically heavy splat as we pulled out of the farm driveway on the way to Saturday morning’s farmers’ market. The edges of each drop on the glass were beginning to gel and freeze, an ominous sign about the day ahead. Bob and I had left […]
The Good Life Can Be a Messy Life
I woke up this morning and came down to my office. I should have done yoga. I should have meditated. Instead, I fixed my attention on the woodstove. It’s late May, for Pete’s sake, I shouldn’t need a fire. But I couldn’t stop shivering. I stumbled through the dark outside until I had some kindling […]
The Good Life Can be a Messy Life
The Good Life Can be a Messy Life May 21, 2013 Tags: radical homemaking, family farming I woke up this morning and came down to my office. I should have done yoga. I should have meditated. Instead, I fixed my attention on the woodstove. It’s late May, for Pete’s sake, I shouldn’t need a fire. […]
Farm Bill 101
Farm Bill 101 April 23, 2013 Tags: sustainable agriculture, family farming I was invited recently to sit in on animal science class at a college about 10 miles away from my house that has a strong agriculture program. This week, the class was discussing the farm bill, and the students were supposed to be exploring […]