Broody Hens and the Sustainable Farmstead
My farmstead poultry flock is sustained by a handful of broody hens—female fowl who have somehow retained their ancient instinct to nest and hatch...
Thinking Like a Lamb
Today I make a COVID resolution: I will learn to be more lamby-like, as Carl would say: to think like a lamb.
In Defense of Livestock
Rushing to enslave themselves like animals in a cage, the animal rights and climate activists who think they are on the “right side of history” are unwittingly reinforcing their dependence on the corporations that have long damaged ecosystem and human health.
That Dog Won’t Hunt!
Whether hunting or watching TV at home, you will never be alone with a good dog by your side. Dixie and I may never get another bird, but a bird hunt is a great excuse to get out of the office, away from a lunch at the faculty lounge, away from this or that electronically amplified human crisis and into the rhythm of nature.
To a Hare, From a Louse
But on this day, I am the louse. It’s my “impudence” and “cursed speed” that has made me break what little union I had with my fellow mortals.
The Growing Pains of a Small Farm: Kristin Kimball’s Good Husbandry...
In some ways Good Husbandry stands as a kind of bildungsroman for Essex Farm and, by extension, the support-your-local-farmer movement.
Cheese Should Be Dangerous
The cheese crafted here came about as a byproduct of a larger whole, the natural dividend of a complete way of life, and this is the foundation of the best farming.
Feeding the World from the Bottom Up
It is natural and normal, when looking at big problems, to look for big answers. Problems do not come much bigger than the subject...
Confused and Contented: On Gardening
Gardening is wholly mundane, but in a way that complements our pursuit of holiness and spirituality because it keeps us properly focused and disposed.