Being in this new place, I am still getting to know this new piece of earth, and all the plants and the animals that live here and were here before us. Starting over all fresh, I can see the way the land shifts to me with how I live, the ways I walk, the things…
Pork Meatballs With Persimmon Barbecue Sauce
I always feel a rebirth this time of year here in Florida – the winds come through and blow away the heavy, moldy, damp, boiling hot summer and bring fresh, cool mornings and bright fall skies. The crushing vines the ruled the garden wither back, and tender new things grow in neat rows in the…
The Threshold
“My barn having burned to the ground I can now see the moon” I did it. After all these troublesome months of so much frantic driving back-and-forth, and the heartache, and the struggle, it’s over. I feel so much relief, but I also feel like I’ve come through a war, still with sword in hand, stalwart…
First Night
I have been working so, so hard….I am just on the cusp of moving my animals over. Kasey, my helper, has been working hard, too, pictured here welding a special attachment to a gate so I can keep the poultry locked up (I am sooooo over the free- range poultry. It’s like living with a…
Counter-Top Sweet Potato Slips
If there is anything that farming and homesteading have taught me, it is that you must never give up. Death and loss and horrible things happen, but giving up is the only real mistake, and abundance is always there, if only you can find the creativity and inspiration to use it. The magic of the…
Here and There
I wish that I had something better to say, but I am living in a war. I am still at my old place here in Alachua, working and working like the girl with brothers turned into seven swans, toiling like she toiled over that last shirt to try to get out and get away and…
Spring Violet Soda
Here is my little goat named Violet – an overly-tame bottle baby that we had kept too long in the kitchen while it was very cold weather. Her mother is a young yearling goat, and didn’t know what to do with her baby. At first Violet slept in a little bin by the wood stove,…
BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
I am so, so excited to share this! I have been working so hard to bring this to a physical form – it has felt like a real birth experience, where the laboring is harder than you realized, and you aren’t sure if you’ll make it! This is the book I have dreamed about and…
Marking Boundaries
There are so many things I am learning on this new journey. I am learning now to mark the boundaries. The corners are the most important things to make strong. Posts must be level. Fencing is really hard work. Machinery is amazing. Friends who help you with fencing are real friends, no doubt about that. Measure more than once. Don’t be stingy. I am…
A New Beginning
Over this past difficult summer I spent a lot of time away from the land I love, visiting friends and people whose company I enjoy. My friend John took me on adventures when he was in town visiting. One day we went all the way to the gulf, to the end of the day and the end…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 