Panic-buying on the one hand and rationing on the other only multiply a crisis. Yet there’s a practical solution that meets a primal need in one classic, simple pattern. Yes. The pantry. The ills of a pandemic are exacerbated by overbuying and by repeatedly returning for trickles of supplies, causing multiple exposures. Like takeout deliveries […]
life with chickens
Picture, if you will, the things we hold dear in this world, only on a slightly different trajectory. Picture them well-supported by a principle of following natural patterns, of meeting needs the way nature does. Take, for example, keeping chickens. We like to keep a flock in our garden. Now, they require shelter, safe from […]
life with geese
We were surprised by the young geese urgently knocking at the front door. They had a great deal to tell us. A moment later, a delivery van pulled up to the farmhouse. A rare event. They’d raced to the front door to tell us the news! What kind creatures. If we listen well, all of […]
green walnut nocino
If there is art in an agrarian practice, it’s in humble solutions that close the loop. Allow the freshly clasped jar of nocino to illustrate. Nocino is the infusion of young, green walnuts in alcohol, hull and all, plucked, sliced and submerged before any evidence of a shell forms within. The young walnut is more […]
making biochar
As carbon sequestration goes, charcoal-making has extraordinary potential. Last year we had the good fortune to spend a day learning to make charcoal with a local historian and tried out the basics of this ancient practice. From Terra-preta in the Amazonian rainforests, stone kilns in Japan (and all over these islands, which our friend has […]