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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 Ugly Shed
I would not have voluntarily shown you this ugly bit of the ugly shed…. … but the white chickens chose to camp in here yesterday and it made me laugh. There is nothing much in there. A few sticks of old furniture, parts of cars, broken totes, a few old seed bags and a lot
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I Hate to Say It
(Because you know how I dread the winters out here): I hate to say it but we now must release the F word out into the Farmy vernacular. FALL is beginning to be felt. Though I prefer the word Autumn which is what we say in New Zealand. As in Autumnal. I love that word.
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The Scent of Walnuts
Since my wicked bout with Covid in New Zealand I have had either no sense of smell or ALL the smells! My sense of smell comes in waves. And the other day after delivering another batch of found walnuts R – she is the BEST forager – R said her car smelt like walnuts. And
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That Dawn Again!
I was up before the dawn today. Letting the dogs out and opening the door for the white chickens to get onto the grass and making my cup of tea before I scuttled back to my bed still warm from a nights restful sleep and jumped in so that I could write to you. It
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Well, that was a Surprise
I was feeding the cows their cabbages and pumpkins and guess who crashed the party! I let the little pigs out to have a rummage in theit field and it only took about 20 minutes for these two to find me. The other two had stayed where they were left. But back into the small
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When you hit that overwhelmed feeling
Identify it first. That overwhelmed feeling. Give it a word. The first word that comes to mind. The word I am giving that feeling today is: prepare. Breathing helps. A good declutter of the brain helps.(not sure how to do that yet, but like my cutlery drawer it is long overdue). We are icebergs. Or
The Kitchen's Garden
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Letters To My Mother
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