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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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How I milk my cow
As you know Daisy stood (we think) on her udder while standing up the other day and ripped a teat almost in half. This teat was sewn back together by the vet. It will be a good three weeks before I can use the machine to milk this quarter. Did I tell you I heard…
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The kitchen
Yesterday we finished straining the yoghurt, Made farmers cheese for tomorrows pizza. Pickled gherkins, Started a dough for pizza bianca, shifted chickens, loaded the plonkers for their final journey (with their beer dinner and beer breakfast this morning, drove the tractor around the block to the other barn, weeded gardens, hunted for eggs (Pania the peahen is…
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Chook Tricks
I was half way through Daisy’s lunchtime milking when Allison called out from above my head. “There’s a dead chicken up here.” Allison had decided to take a bucket up into the loft of the barn to collect all the old eggs that had been languishing up there lost in the hay for more than a…
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Ni Ni Mama
We all get to die. This is one of the truths we try very hard not to look in the face. In fact we will say Pass Away, or Passed or Gone. But the truth is these poor bodies we wear when we are dancing, will one day stop dancing at all. They cannot go…
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Daisy
Yesterday Allison from Red Door Coop arrived in the afternoon. She is here for a week on a farmy farm stay. I had had a busy day, getting ready for Alison, editing the latest format of The Letters, Queenie and her Flerd were in Pats Paddock, Mama and her girls were in the middle field and…
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freedom
The still has begun its work of turning vegetable matter into essential oils. Yesterday was peppermint. As well as the gorgeous oils there is the by-product of scented water. I love the scented water just as much as the oil! Timatanga Moana the little Kunekune piglet was very quiet all yesterday. She usually is a very staid…
The Kitchen's Garden
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Letters To My Mother
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