October 16, 2012 When I sit down to write, it seems as if time goes into suspension. I’m unaware of my next obligation, of the dogs gnawing their bones beside me, of the hum of the refrigerator. I forget about my last argument with my mother (unless, of course, I’m writing about it), about what’s […]
Can We Eat Meat in an Ecological and Economic Crisis? Yes.
Can we eat meat in an ecological and economic crisis? Yes. October 9, 2012 Tags: radical homemaking, grassfed cooking, grassfed meat, sustainable agriculture, Tuesday Post Thirty-plus years as grassfed meat farmers has taught my family to anticipate unpredictability. One minute we’re in floods. The next, drought. One minute livestock farmers are accused of being cruel […]
Sidestepping the Upsell
Bob and I had the delight a few weeks ago of sharing our day at our farmers’ market with a young man who is preparing to go into grassfed farming. He worked closely with my mom and dad to understand the production end of the farm, then chose to spend a day with Bob and […]
The Other Side of Gainful Unemployment
Earning a living from multiple enterprises can occasionally feel like a tangled mess. “Today, I will do one thing at a time.” These are the words I’ve been saying to myself each morning lately as I leap from my bed. I mindlessly repeat them while at the same time working through what time homeschool lessons […]
Acting Out
Acting Out May 24, 2012 Tags: parenting Maybe intervention isn’t always the answer. Saoirse and Ula are three years apart. Saoirse, 8, is unusually tall, slender, well-spoken, and comes across to grown-ups as particularly well-behaved and extraordinarily poised. Ula isn’t any of those things. At 5, she’s about a foot shorter than her sister, demonstrates […]
Gainful Unemployment
Gainful Unemployment May 16, 2012 Tags: gainful unemployment Life without a job can be full of profitable ventures. It was just getting dark the night of November 1st, 1999 as I locked my bike outside my Ithaca apartment, walked inside and learned from my roommate that Bob had been trying to reach me. He was […]
Perfect Moment
Ula captures the world on her i-soap Perfect Moment April 10, 2012 Tags: traveling with kids At its best, travel is a patchwork of glorious moments, too perfect and rich for all the senses to be captured simply in photographs. Ula reminded me of that the other day. We’re presently renting an apartment in a […]
Health Lessons from a Local Diet
For nearly 20 years now, I’ve been fully immersed in the local food movement, investigating and promoting the ways that it helps to heal the earth, build community resilience, improve local relationships, enable healthier partnerships between humans and livestock, and improve our well-being. That last attribute has been an interesting sticking point for our family […]
Au Revoir, St. Pierre
Saoirse started crying during dinner a few nights ago. We’d just returned from an evening stroll around our temporary home, St. Pierre de Maille, where spring has taken a definitive hold. Along the walk we’d passed by fields plowed and freshly seeded, cattle finally out on pasture, neighbors out doing the seasonal work that comes […]
French Bob
You’re never too old to speak from the heart French Bob March 30, 2012 Tags: homeschooling, traveling with kids I would be lying if I told you I was a linguist. But from the time I was a child, the ability to speak languages ranked high on my life priorities. It distressed me as a […]