One of my very first columns written for Farm and Dairy centered around the topic of my excited impatience as I awaited the birth of my second baby. That baby girl just turned 21 a couple of days ago.
I have come to realize that parenting is very much like living through the seasons. As […]

“We worked in the woods for nearly 10 hours today, falling trees, sawing lumber. I could have worked 10 more. There is something invigorating about work in the deep forest, the type of work of which I never tire.”
– Alexander Smalley diary entry, 1880

Autumn is the perfect time for reflection, for a walk […]

“There is a little man in that child who has already stood his ground with the stubborn calves in the barn and the pigs in the feed lot, but there is also the heart of a saint, for he has learned to be patient and kind to those that others consider dumb animals.”
– Sedonia […]

“Throwing down hay from the highest point of the south mow, I was drawn to the west corner by the tiniest of sounds. Nestled in a tiny bowl of hay, I found a litter of colorful kittens. I watched them stretch and yawn and remember why it is worth the hard work of farming just […]

All my life, I have been certain of one thing. Dairy farmers are not paid nearly enough.
Now, this has been true even when others who write about such things were saying that the industry was strong, the price better than it had been for years. I don’t care what the authors of such things […]

A knock came on my door as I worked in the kitchen one late afternoon this past week. I was startled because I had not heard a car come down our long lane.
I was happily surprised to see that it was the oldest of the three sisters who walk through our farm on their […]

“I spent the afternoon astraddle the ridge of the new barn-loft roof laying down a ridgecap, a course of overlapping shingles that covers the seam where the shingles meet from each slanting roof face. It would have been difficult not to have been happy up there. The fall migration of monarch butterflies, stunning creatures of […]

“If you’re in the wrong place, the right things don’t happen.”
– Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1942

There are some things we are given absolutely no choice over in this life. We are born in to a certain place and time, we arrive with parents and family members already in place, and life begins for each individual with […]

“On the farm, I’d come to see that my animals managed to avoid, almost entirely by instinct, the dramas that humans create for themselves. I envied them.”
– Jon Katz, Izzy & Lenore
I once heard the comment that animals don’t have nearly the troubles that humans have, mostly because they cannot talk. Wow. Truer words […]

“Wes Jackson is fond of saying that if your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough. And no one is thinking bigger about sustainable agriculture than Wes Jackson.”
– from People We’re Pleased To Know
Chipotle Mexican Grill

Recently, I stopped for lunch and a soft drink while out running […]