Over the long holiday weekend, I gave two orchard walk/ farm tours. The second ended with four of us men standing around a pickup truck talking about all sorts of stuff: if we could grow good reishi mushrooms here, the fact that women can hand-milk cows better than men, how much more expensive organic feed… Continue reading Rooster, Keep Your Head on a Swivel
We spent the night recently in the new suburbs of Fishers, Indiana. I went out in the morning to load our sleeping pads back in the van because we were leaving shortly after breakfast to get home and milk the cows. I noticed the birdsong there, the morning birdsong. It was thin, like ultra-pasteurized skim… Continue reading Morning Birdsong
I was on my way out to the woods, dragging a cart that carried my saw, chaps, fuel mix, bar oil, water, etc. and I checked the grafts that line the path, the pawpaws and the hickories. The hickory grafts are just two weeks old and have only just started breaking through the parafilm. True… Continue reading Where I Ramble About Chainsaw Work And Cutting Up Trees
We have lived on this farm for 10 years almost exactly, since July 1, 2007. It is a long time. We came here so excited that first night and camped on the porch before my brother arrived with the box truck the next day carrying our bed. It was just my wife and I and… Continue reading Bootstrap Farming 10 Years In
It is a cool morning, the temperature just above 50°F. Early this morning or late last night and the deep of sleep, I remember trying to ask my wife to throw on an extra blanket as she was getting out of bed to use the bathroom but the words wouldn't come out. When I woke… Continue reading Seven In The Morning, On a Monday
I might forsake the farm and leave every tree I ever planted for "notebooks, novels, no plans" like she says. But then, we still have to eat don't we? It is a tricky thing this body requiring fuel. So poets envy plants. Green at their chlorophyll. Plants and sun-staring yogis. Bodhisattvas that sit so long they're wrapped… Continue reading Notebooks, Novels, No plans
Today was supposed to be a slow soaker, a light drizzling drench that lasted all the day long. There were 2 inches in the forecast and that's evaporated to .78" maybe around noon. I'll believe it when I see it. The ground would have drank 2" of rain like it was nothing. 2" wouldn't have… Continue reading I’ll Leave It To You To Piece It Together
