I can’t be the only mother who secretly detests Halloween. I hate the costume planning that inserts itself into a busy harvest season, requiring either absurd amounts of money or the investment of astronomical commitments of time at a sewing machine for one evening of candy-drugged over-stimulation. It inevitably results in crazed children raging […]
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 […]
My Kids Are Taking Me To Disney?!
As parents, each of us understands there will come a day when our children will step into their own authority, when their choices and their destinies will be uniquely their own. But that doesn’t stop us from trying to control the outcome. It doesn’t stop us from harboring private dreams about what sort of choices […]
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 […]
Sex Education
Saoirse pitched a bit of a fit a few months ago when Bob and I dropped her and Ula off down at the farm with my parents. We were going home for a date night. She had a few creative works in progress on her craft table, she knew we were having lobster for […]
The Knitting Emergency
If any of my peers growing up did hand-crafts, they never admitted it in public. It seemed that the socially acceptable way to establish a sense of self worth was through traveling soccer teams, prom courts, and AP coursework. To pursue a vocation that involved making something with one’s hands, whether in a shop […]
Wall Space
Our home school started this week. In a sincere attempt to commence the season by improving upon my own organizational shortcomings, I have been slowly preparing these past last few weeks by cleaning out my homeschooling cabinet, tossing out old papers, boxing up the past year’s curriculum materials, inventorying this year’s supplies, reading ahead in […]
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 […]
Summer Choices
Summer Choices July 31, 2012 Tags: radical homemaking, sustainable agriculture, family farming, Tuesday Post Rain has fallen here nearly every day for the past week, offering welcome refreshment from this summer’s drought. Several hours of steady deluge Sunday had serious implications indoors. Comforters, blankets and pillow cases were pulled from the beds, sheets were stripped, […]
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