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I am Cecilia. A New Zealander who farms in Illinois.
My farms are organic and regenerative and full of stories. I have been writing here about environmentally sustainable farming and food and travel since 2011.
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LATEST POSTS
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Quiet Farm Syndrome
Suddenly there is a whole lot of not very much to do. And I keep panicking! What have I forgotten I say to myself? The barn has become a retirement home for chickens. Everywhere I look there are old hens sitting about with their ancient roosters lamenting that all the feed is in barrels with
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Life jackets on my Lovelies
I spent a lot of yesterday in intentional thought. Thinking on purpose is a whole new level of thinking. Like you – I have a lot of thoughts. But I marshaled them. Set them up in a line on the beach. Gave them a little boat each and rowed around with each thought for a
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Bleak.
That is the only word I have for the news this morning. Bleak. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. This feels very true this morning, too. I get that we cannot possibly all agree. Politics is super charged with emotion here. Dangerous territory. I know. I keep taking my hands off the keyboard to
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Thankful I am not a flower caught in a marketing funnel
I am grateful for chrysanthemums. and sorry for them too. And thankful I am not one. Though I have no chrysanthemums to show you. Because I refuse to succumb to the marketing that tricks me to only buying them in the autumn when it is too late to plant them. The chrysanthemum are forced to
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A Thanksgiving Calendar for November
Today I am taking the matriarch to the dentist to get her six teeth cleaned. They called with a cancellation appt or she would have had to wait until April. Dentists are busy I guess. And as a life long smoker she does not have many teeth left. So I am grateful we could get
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White Rabbit, White Rabbit, Green
Pinch and a Punch for the First of the Month. In the playgrounds of my youth. On the first of the month. As we first came through the gates in the morning. Walking across the field. Swinging our bags. Even while lining up to file into class, in the early morning air, on the first
The Kitchen's Garden
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Letters To My Mother
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