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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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Dividing up the loot
A couple of times a week the local grocery store gives The Farmy a bag of expired produce. I sit on one bucket surrounded by other empty buckets and set to work chopping and dividing up all the vegetables, potatoes and fruit. I am immediately surrounded in a rabble of watchers, outright looters and opportunists, …
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Beer O’Clock I called to the Kiwi Builder
He immediately began to pack up. After all it was beer o’clock and getting dark. Sadly the weather was not on our side and we were unable to have the Friday drink out on the dance floor of the coupe, instead we sat inside by the fire. The Matriarch said maybe next Friday. I told…
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Part two of the farmy walkabout but have I missed somebody?
This is what the very few people who drive down our country road are seeing. Daily changes. Not much changing with Daisy though. She stands exactly here for most of the day. Watching the kitchen door for movement. Daisy is an Ayrshire. A very old breed of dairy cow. She is almost four. She is…
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The Coupe Rises and a Wee Walkabout (Part One)
Yesterday was a very big day in the project to build a self contained cabin attached to the house. It is called the Coupe because I styled it on the old chicken coops that used to be in the farmyards of every farm around here. Using the sun to warm it and design to cool…
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A Sad Post about White Cat whose Name Was Apollo
Between feeding the cats on the verandah in the early morning and my return from feeding the animals in the barn, White Cat had an episode that left him paralysed in his whole back half. Some kind of embolism in the spine the Vet said. I forget the word he used. White Cat was lying…
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The ting ting of melting ice
The temperatures slowly rose a little and by afternoon yesterday the air was filed with the steady rhythm of melting ice. Its ting tap tinkle followed us around the farm. Not above freezing yet but close. The Kiwi builder reluctantly returned from his annual holiday in Florida full of ideas. He is determined to get…
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