In some ways, all we’ve done in the past decade has prepared us for now! The Plague! We thought it’d be Peak Oil, or Climate Catastrophe (maybe it is Climate Catastrophe, by proxy), or locusts, locusts would be cool but harder for us to isolate from, I guess. But an honest-to-god plague? Well, …
I’m sorry I haven’t written lately, but I’ve spent every second of my life trying to figure out what to do with all these eggs. Here’s a chart generally showing the rate of growth from our girls. Hover over the points for milestones. Note: number of eggs may be approximations, …
Hello, Life, you magnificent wonder, bleating illustration of universal mysteries. The Native and I spent some minutes this morning trying to dislodge a baseball-sized mound of feces from the week-old undercarriage of this little black goat. Farming is sexy. And my nasal passages may never be the same.
We expanded the farm by about 20,000 members a couple of days ago, figuring there’s no use in growing our own vegetables and raising our own livestock if we can’t sweeten the deal ourselves as well.  The idea of helping to save honeybee populations appeals to me almost as much …
I wasn’t in the market for a new dog, not yet.  Mud Season was high upon us, and I wasn’t quite finished being sad for my dearly departed sheepdog.  But the Squirrel hadn’t stopped talking about the dog, and definitely hadn’t stopped loving up any and every dog we happened upon, nor …
For people as dirty as we think we are, we go through no small amount of the foamy stuff, and the latent chemist in me was curious enough to take a plunge into soapmaking.  I mean, if you screw it up, it can explode in a glorious toxic flume!  You can …
Have I mentioned we’re raising pigs again?  This time doing it our way, rotating their pasture and letting them till up vast swaths of our new and erstwhile untouched, unkempt land?  Have I mentioned this results in lean, fast, noisy fuckers, who pile mud atop the fence when out of space, and use …
I need to talk about mice. I know. Rodents are part of living in the woods. I get it. I’m not one of those shrieking-with-a-broomstick sort of ladies when it comes to mice. As an advocate for woodland critters generally, I can’t express too big of a problem with them. …
Two days before closing camp for our big winter trip, I was bestowed an early Christmas gift in the form of a quart of whey, leftover from a cheese-making adventure. My friend said it was tasty when drunk straight-up with a little maple syrup, and I don’t know about you, …
The first year we were here, early in winter, I lost my phone. We’d just returned home for the evening that night and I, certain that I’d dropped it on the mile-long trail between camp and the Jeep, took My Native’s phone and a headlight, and traced and retraced my …
