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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


  • Meet the boyfriend.

    Yesterday was the day to take Charlotte the Hereford gilt to visit The Swineherd’s Boar for breeding purposes.  Charlotte loaded herself up and we hitched the trailer to the red truck and trundled away to his little farm for her Valentines Day Week date with destiny. And look who we found. Meet the boyfriend. He…

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  • a day in the life of miss c, without pictures

    Yesterday. It was that kind of day. But with no photographic evidence. Let me tell you about it. I awoke at 4.30 am as usual and listened to the wind for a wee minute. It still sounded like winter. Why I think I am going to wake up one morning and it will sound like…

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  • Making Wicks for Candles and Winter Honey

    Yesterday was a rainy and blustery Sunday.  Just the kind of Sunday we need when there is lots of work to do inside.  I am two thirds of the way through decanting all the honey from the empty hives. Now I really have an awful of wax.  I thought that on Thursday the home schooled…

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  • How to steam eggs – no need to boil at all.

    I have always had trouble peeling boiled eggs.  No matter what method I tried I could not do it. Every egg I peeled looked .. well .. pitted, mauled, savaged. I never had this problem when I was young but in my impatient adult years I developed some kind of egg peeling condition. But I…

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  • We need to talk about Charlotte

    But first.. what is wrong with this picture.  Yes!  Do you see it, too? It is not often that we have a steer grazing in the drive.  And a dog paying no attention AT ALL.  He had broken out of his pen (well we all know who his mother is!) and eaten the afternoons hay..…

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  • Rain. Rain falling with a relieved sigh.

    I know some of you are expecting snow but we had hours and hours of rain yesterday and OH it was glorious. Quiet, firm and even heavy at times.  All the animals stood out in it. I was milking an unrepentant, dripping wet cow. The fields are waterlogged. The troughs are overflowing.  Just lovely.  Though…

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