This year’s drought has laid additional stresses on the farm. Everything is harder without water. The well for our house has been completely dry for two months. The pasture plants didn’t produce anywhere close to normal growth, so our grazing season ended prematurely. We needed to dip into our winter stores of grass hay earlier […]
Looking for Silver Linings to Drought Read More »
I enjoy leafing through discolored and spotted old magazines, studying the advertisements. There’s something special about old ads, because ads are only effective during a narrow temporal context. They don’t age well. Cultural signifiers change. Time tempers the urgency of messages that once were so insistent. Even the most successful campaigns now feel exposed, blinking
What is Healthy Anyway? Read More »
Foliar sprays. Biochar. Compost tea. Kelp. Apple cider vinegar. Good luck amulets. Chances are, if you’ve spent any time at any organic farming event, you’ve been hounded by hucksters, all eager to impress upon you the transformative power of the thing they happen to be selling. The sales pitch will be reminiscent of the dusty
Potions for Pastures Read More »
This year we’ve been running an on-farm research project, and I’m excited to share results. Just to set expectations: no, this isn’t the kind of research with clipboards, double blind controls, and all the rigor necessary for peer review. This is informal, but it still has great value. We’ve learned new things. In fact, I
How We Use Chickens as No-Till Seed Planters Read More »
