WELCOME!

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.

Join Us!


LATEST POSTS


  • The precious light of dawn

    It appears that against my will I am being carefully and inexorably towed out by the tide of an ebbing summer, back into the dark mornings. The brightness of summer is leaving me.  Too soon. Too soon. The sunrise is only at the strength of a whisper as I carry my buckets of warm water…

    Read more

  • ‘Success is the ability to go from one failure..

    … to another failure, with no loss of enthusiasm’. Winston Churchill.  I love that one, it describes us all so perfectly.  It certainly describes this cheese as it proceeds with its  metamorphosis from cheddar to puddle. Ah well. Churchill also said something about ‘success not being final and failure not being fatal.’   But that…

    Read more

  • You can run…

    But you can’t hide. On the way to pick up the honey frames that the bees had cleaned. So I could pop them in the freezer for 24 hours to kill any bugs, then wrap them and store them for the winter. I saw this.  Devastation.  On the lower portion of the vines. The Vidal Blanc.…

    Read more

  • And now for something completely different

    We are beginning a brand new project.  Can you guess.  We are still in the planning stages. I will need your help.  I am sure we will manage to make a great big mess first.  Yes. It is a building project.  My first big building project was the large deep Kiwi  verandah on the West…

    Read more

  • A day in the life of the Piggie Shush Sisters

    I thought I would show you what the Shush Sisters get up to during the day. Charlotte and Sheila. My naughty Hereford piggies. The Shush Sisters have a night time residence in the barn. It has big inside sleeping quarters, that can be closed right up for the winter, and an outside concrete courtyard. In…

    Read more

  • When flawed is just perfect..

    And  imperfect is exactly right. Yesterday was one of those delicious days when nothing much happened. I went about my work. Not too energetically. Alone on the farm again.  The quiet is getting quieter. The road is still blocked by construction from both directions, it has been like this all summer but they seem to…

    Read more