I can’t predict the future. Does that mean I have to sell my soul? My fingers are gliding over the bindings of the books in the the stacks of the library. I have a half hour to kill before I head over to the small business management night class I’m taking. In recent months, I’ve […]
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, […]
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 […]
Eulogy for a Dog
As a farm kid, Ula is accustomed to the cycle of life and death. But she wasn’t accustomed to my sadness. “Somebody just died.” Ula begins. “Somebody was just born,” I answer, smiling. “Somebody is crying,” she responds. “Somebody is laughing.” “Somebody is scared.” “Somebody is eating ice cream.” “Somebody’s happy.” “Somebody’s sad.” […]
The Big Fat Smackdown
I thought if we did everything right, we wouldn’t face the same troubles as everyone else. I’m so thankful I was wrong. I am standing in line in front of an inflatable bounce house next to a DJ’s screaming speakers at a fundraising event on the SUNY Albany campus. I am a place holder for Saoirse, […]
Can we truly honor the earth on Earth Day?
As a radical homemaker, I want to live within the bounds of our ecosystem. But to do so, I’ve had to defy impossible odds, break the law, and quite possibly deny my children something that has been considered a fundamental entitlement in this country. This blog post is drawn from a talk I delivered in […]
Why is everybody looking for a handout?
I got angry when my sister observed that “everybody is looking for a handout”…until I realized how many times I’d said it myself. “Would you prefer to ride a dragon, or a winged tiger?” Ula is skipping between Saoirse and me as we head up the road for a morning walk. “I have this one […]
Would you help me stir the pot?
Become a Patron Every year, for my birthday, I give myself a present. In 2015, I gave myself permission to ask…. Background I began writing essays and grassfed recipes and posting them to my website shortly after Saoirse was born in 2003. Since that time, I’ve lost count of how many essays I’ve written, and […]
FIRED: Rejected by society? Or by the economy?
When my husband was fired, we thought our community didn’t want us. It turns out we were wanted more than ever. November first marked the 15th anniversary of Bob’s and my radical homemaking adventure. We didn’t plan it that way. He was fired. We had just taken out a mortgage on the home of our […]
Sundried Tomatoes or Mountain Streams?
We are driving home from Ula’s eye doctor appointment in Schenectady as Saoirse wistfully glances back over her shoulder at the mountains in the distance. She sighs. “Can we please go to the Adirondacks this summer?” Her question interrupts my own thoughts, where I am tallying how much garlic I have left in storage, calculating […]
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