gardening
Taking care of ourselves and each other: Learning and doing in the Piedmont
To top off settling in a new place shortly after I got here I decided to go to college for an endless number of years sometimes living far from home to do the history thing I have been doing as…
‘Back in the day’ the Sorensen’s on the farm
For many years while my husband and I were farming in South Dakota the buzz word in the counter culture back-to-the-land press was self-sufficiency and many a ‘back to the lander” busted their butts trying to raise it all themselves,…
Where are we today?
Today rather than judge ourselves by some illusory benchmark of historical rural American self ‘sufficiency’ we might do better for each of us to make the effort to be more self-reliant. By self-reliant I mean making the goal to do…
Organic Hen Feed? Sorry, Not Interested.
I’ve just heard on NPR this morning that the current price for organic soy beans (mostly imported from China) has risen to $800 a ton – roughly twice what it was last year. This has put commercial organic chicken raisers…
Taking care of ourselves and each other: Self-reliance, sustainibility, and Andrew Zolli
Around about Thanksgiving is pretty much when I close up the summer and early fall making/doing/storing food bustle. I’m getting ready to hunker down; you’d think I was a squirrel. South Dakota winters have a way of sticking in…
In which I harvest Japanese Persimmons and am made very happy
There is no way to share the lovely fragrance of a newly cut Japanese persimmon or the soft and slippery mouth feel of the deeply orange ripe fruit by word only; American persimmons at their best can be delightful as…