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 […]
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 […]
Asking For Help
Asking For Help March 5, 2013 Tags: family farming, sustainable agriculture Bob and I acted as though it were completely natural when Sara and Raymond, friends of ours with a CSA about 30 minutes from here, wrote about a month ago and asked us if we’d assist them with a barn-raising at the beginning of […]
But can we feed the world?
Photo by Seth Joel Sooner or later the question comes up, whether it is between two friends sharing a pot of stew made from local grassfed beef and their garden harvest, livestock farmers gathered on a pasture walk, neighbors working together to tend a flock of backyard chickens, or organic vegetable producers discussing yields at […]
Cooperating Across Generations
Cooperating Across the Generations January 29, 2013 Tags: family farming, parenting Farming should be about making way for the next generation, as well as serving the needs of the present. If there’s a romantic image that tugs at our heart strings as much as the thought of homegrown tomatoes, it’s the multi-generational family farm. In […]
The Price of Corn
This past weekend I made a trek out to central Wisconsin to speak at the state’s annual grazing conference, which typically draws farmers from all over the Midwest. This was the second time I’ve been invited to join these folks, and I remembered it fondly from back in 2009, when the conference center was packed, […]