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Snowwwwww Dayyyyyyy!!!!!
The snow came. I clear drifts from the barn doors. Haul down bushels of treehay from the loft and shoulder them out to the flocks. Cart bales of hay and buckets of feed up the hill. Sinking ankle deep in crunching clean snow. No time for anything other than the necessary. Our backup water is […]
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Winter’s Coming…
I love the frost and the snow. The clarity and crispness of the light seems a beautiful thing. What is to be done is clear, that it needs to be done pressing. It’s a clear, simple, uncomplicated and necessary world in the snow
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A journey, three turkeys, and what it means to make food.
It’s been a journey. But for our trouble, we have three plump bronze Turkeys weighing around 20lbs each. We had our butcher in Boyle clean and prepare them. He’s deft, careful and skilled. And he gives the kids lollipops. Two are gifts for good friends. People who will come and tend a pulled lamb or […]
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The Sparrowhawk
I live in a land of thrushes, and of sparrowhawks. In summer she waits. The female hawk. Perched on the thick overarching hedgerows that border the back roads in summer. The hedges are thronged with thrushes and blackbirds. Safe, hidden in amongst the thorn trees. Bread and butter for sparrowhawks is she can but flush […]
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Free Food from Sligo Global Kitchen and Hawthorn Hill Farm
Sligo Global kitchen is a group of refugees, some in Direct Provision, who cook food, and share it with whoever turns up at their Global Feasts. You can’t cook in Direct Provision. You can’t work. Or study. So. What do you do? You open a Global kitchen that serves food for free to 300 people […]
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Adaptability, Cold Antler Farm and Farmer Jenna
Cold Antler Farm is a six acre farm in the USA run by Jenna Woginrich. Graphic designer, blogger, writer, farmer, fiddler, hunter, falconer and soap maker. Hit her up for soap, logos, graphic design work, pork shares, sheep, soap, or lessons in fiddling and falconry. Today’s post is about farming, adaptability, and Cold Antler Farm. […]
Read MoreShearing 2018
The shearers came. Late in the evening. A day before we had agreed. A quick scrambled call gave us an hour to be ready. It’s that way with any harvest on the farm. Work is done when the weather and the workers are there. Schedules are a kind of moveable feast. We gathered metal hurdles […]
Read MoreAt sea on dry land and the sound of ships in the stormy night…
I woke to the sound of the sea. The sound of creaking timbers. The sound is of sea on sand. I live 50 miles from the coast. There was a storm the night before last. The sound was the sound of the forest. In high wind the trees creak and groan. The wind on the […]
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Where the wild things are…
It’s summer. Glorious, rarely seen, actually warm summer. Day after day of sunlight. I personally know people who have been able to grow tomatoes in this weather. It truly is the end of times. We’ve been letting the verges, the driveway and the yard run riot with weeds. They are choked with grasses, wildflowers,and wonderful […]
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Wildflower Walk, Hawthorn Hill Farm, May 2018
Biodiversity is at the heart of how we are farming here. We want the wildness in our pasture. We want wildness and weeds. It’s better for our land. For our soil. For our health. For our sheep and goats. And it’s better for our produce. A complex, healthy mix of plants, flowers, herbs and grasses […]
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