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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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The air itself was loud yesterday
With big machines racing through the fields and a high, hot Southerly wind, yesterday was loud. The dust from the harvest was whipping around me as I worked. The rain in the forecast came to nothing. I feel disconsolate today. While my engagement numbers continue to rise on Substack with one newsletter a week, and
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Dawn Corn Harvest
At dawn. Probably figuring we were already awake anyway. And they were right. The combine harvesters began to strip our fields of the organic corn. Organic or not it is still a monster machine. I was not ready for him to start that early so the shots were taken on the fly. Very soon –
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But It is my Duty to Escape! 🐖
This is not Colditz. Yet these piggies feel duty bound to attempt an escape at every moment. Today I will work on their backyard. They are very forceful and use their bodies as battering rams to get where they want to be which is OUT then just as forcefully back IN. Anywhere that there is
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Are our phones staging an insidious silent coup?
I am working on uncoupling from my phone. Not the whole phone but when did these features start replacing stuff in my life. The convenience of it is so seductive. is this a take-over of the chosen kind. In that I have chosen it? The flashlight, the camera, the notes, the photo file, the calendar,
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Friends with Coffee
At least once a year my friends from Georgia come up to Chicago to see their family and stop off for a day on the farm. K always brings preserves and coffee. She likes good coffee! They have done this every year for eight years so they know their way around the kitchen and the
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Visitors Get Bread
I only ever bake bread now when I have guests. And they gobble it up. So I don’t!! 😂 I find a fresh loaf of bread so hard to resist! They are all still asleep. (The guests). So hopefully I have time to write. The harvesters across the road have been running all night –
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