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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


  • Everyone Gets in on the Act

    Everyone Gets in on the Act

    The cows share the pig garden and a really great TKG Sunday Newsletter. And what’s with YouTube? Notes from the weekend. Out of nowhere the YouTube channel where I store little shorts of the farm is getting lots of traffic. Natural sound, handheld and unedited seem to be getting the most attention. There is more

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  • How to tell if a Pumpkin is ready to harvest.

    How to tell if a Pumpkin is ready to harvest.

    Good morning. Our pumpkin patch is almost ready to harvest. And I am feeling comfortable enough to call this season a success! I have never grown a proper pumpkin patch before but we have piles of little kids around now and so Our John wanted to grow them a pumpkin each. The kids will carve

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  • You know the saying :

    You know the saying :

    If you have live stock you are going to have dead stock. I know that is the way of it. But I hate it anyway. Sadly the huge teenage mutant turkey gave up the ghost. With its badly formed wings and massively long legs it was more stalk than turkey. But was very sweet tempered.

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  • Working Well in the Late Summer Days

    Working Well in the Late Summer Days

    Another day of regular good work. And perfect cool nights and sunny days. There is an in between feel to the days but we are nowhere close to fall – I hate to even hear mention of it. Still summer in my book. I need to drag my spade around and knock down and drag

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  • Sleeping on the Job

    Sleeping on the Job

    The Charlottes are getting through the Mad King’s Garden fast. Cleaning up and clearing out. Here they are fast asleep in the afternoon sun. It was very mild yesterday. And they have turned the soil in these raised beds into soft beds. When R comes again tomorrow I will get her to distract the Charlottes

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  • How to Train your Hens to sleep in the Hen House

    How to Train your Hens to sleep in the Hen House

    Chickens are creatures of habit. And they like their own beds. Which makes it easy to train hens to roost in the same building each night. In the early summer I round up all the winter runaways and shut them into the chook house. And I add all the new chickens . From the time

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