I spent the summer farming as much as possible, playing hooky from my consulting practice, limiting my volunteer work, squeezing out my writing, and ignoring my housekeeping. It was my fourth summer as the sole farmer on the farm. Finally I felt I perfected every mission critical task and process. I was gung ho to manage [...]
I harvested the last of the asparagus in my former vegetable garden before I turned the cows into the south pasture for the second time this season. It has been a three week streak of me doing farm work in every available hour, and I am feeling smug about my accomplishments. So many seasons past I [...]
With the appearance of tulips, spring morphs from pastels to jewel tones, and the grays and browns of winter are finally crowded from the landscape. My electric orange tulips are the mark of warm days on the farm. Before they arrived, when I needed to be reassured of the end of winter, I purchased a [...]
I am trying to go with the flow. I thought it would improve my technique to know the origin of the phrase. According to UrbanDictionary.com “go with the flow” was first known to be used by Marcus Aurelius who ruled the Roman Empire from 161 to 180. I remember my Grandma Best, a lifetime school [...]
I guess I’ve been depressed for a week or so. Now that it’s been going on for a while, I am starting to recognize it. My grandma died. She was 103. No one from our family was with her when she died because it wasn’t convenient for anyone, including me. It’s funny how life works. [...]
Each year a particular circle of friends produces a wild, foraged, and farmed dinner purely for our own indulgence. It’s a gracious competition where everyone eats the rewards. This year the menu included my own country veal pate, pickled wild ramps, creamed nettle soup, an exquisite homemade hard cider that was more like Prosecco, nettle [...]
It is the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend, the second farmers market of the season, one of the loveliest days in May, the beginning of a three-day pajama party at the farm, and I am frazzled. All week long my consulting clients have been like a room full of crying babies. Each demands my immediate [...]
My hairdresser is thinking about farming. She asked me which season is harder, summer or winter? Summer is definitely harder. As soon as the warm weather hits, the pressure is on to start seeds, get the garden planted, fix the fence lines, set up the pasture rotation, move the cows onto grass and get the [...]
I saw my reflection in the soil today as I was planting peas and I hardly recognized myself. Poking the first seeds of the season into the garden brings up memories of seasons past. I used to wear red nail polish and panty hose. Now may hands are too rough to decorate and pantyhose don’t [...]
Last fall I built a cold frame from old stockade doors I found in the barn. I screwed eye bolts into the ends of the doors and laced them together to create a deep box on a southwestern facing slope. I put about a foot of composted cow manure in the bottom of the box [...]