The Feed Store

Lamentations 5:4 bewails, “We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price.” In exile, Israel mourned the loss of free access to the land’s gifts.

Wading in a river and lumberjacking in the woods are at once work and play, play and work, and in this they resemble anything we might do for instrumental ends and yet,…

In the ultimate form of mimesis, the well-seasoned mower who comes to know every inch of the property he maintains, also comes, in the end, to know the contours and corners of…

He who has a piece of ground to call his own is not truly bereft, no matter what else is lost.

Mine is not a left-wing voice of animal rights idealism or return-to-the-land idyllicism. This is just plain old real science.

In Oklahoma, the nature many of us live so close to is a different thing from the concept of “nature” we have internalized.

If we are serious about sustainability, we need to rethink where and how we apply pressure.

Trust in rural places isn’t built on virtue; it’s built on visibility. It’s knowing you’ll see the person again.

There is no law preventing us from being worthy pupils of the spring rains, the dead, and the plants. We can mind first principles; we can keep our hands off the principal.

Though we may choose to live out our lives differently upon the land, there remain in both places people who still care for and respect land and community. I have learned much…

Every year that we farm in the old ways, more of nature returns, despite the mistakes we make. Each return teaches hope.

I’ve heated with wood for a winter, and I am pleased to do so, but it’s backbreaking labor to warm this way for a lifetime