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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


  • Working Dogs

    Working Dogs

    Poppy’s little piglets are just like their Mother. Escape artists.  Every time I turn around lately they are out in the wrong field or on the drive or somewhere they are not meant to be.  In fact I have never had a group quite as busy.  Boo is put on his string when we herd…

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  • Feeding Time

    Feeding Time

    Feeding a big group of pigs is like merging onto a motorway full of fast moving trucks whose drivers got their licenses from the dodge-ems at a fair. And all the drivers are half crazed with thirst and my truck is carrying the beer! Happy pigs. My friend Kristy (eatplayloveblog) had Camera House yesterday and was…

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  • Tane

    Tane

    Pronounced Tahnay. Tane Mahuta is my small kunekune boar.  He has a Maori name – from my homeland New Zealand.  Like many ancient cultures the Maori culture had many gods, Tane is the God of the forests and birds. (Though in New Zealand we call the forests the BUSH). The word also means boy or man.…

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  • It was only luck

    It was only luck

    It as only luck that I was on the tractor last night rolling out through the garden and along the empty grey fields, – past the pigs field, them runing out to meet me – we’re here we’re here … .. through the baby fellowship forest. Along the fence-line where the the black and white herd gathered…

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  • Move along. Move along.

    Move along. Move along.

    Nothing to see here. And that is exactly what I could see  – nothing. I was standing,  pigs lunch buckets in my hands, ready to step over the electric fence and join the running throng of young fat pigs, holding the buckets high, merging with the fast moving traffic, trying to get to their bowls before…

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  • Clicking into place

    Clicking into place

    Do you know those puzzles for pre schoolers, it is a flat board, they have wooden cut outs and the child has to fit the cut out, like a cow or something, into the hole of the same shape. Their little chubby hands wriggle and work at the shape and the hole until the shape is…

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