About

Time to update this (again)!  So, here goes:  

Hello, folks!   I like to write,  to cook, to play with cameras.   I am now much deeper into the homesteading/small-scale farming life than when this blog first started.   I live on land tucked into the Hilltowns of western Massachusetts.    Land chosen because the land itself sang to me, and because there are friends regionally, and because there was no way I want to move to Florida even though that’s where my brother and nieces live.  Much as I dearly love my folk.  I live with one ragdoll cat, a changing number of chickens, on rather inexpensive rural land, perhaps a little too far from supermarkets, but I’m fine.

Yes, I had this built (log kit construction which I had some leeway to modify). Chickens are now in the back, right, and last summer the raised beds were placed, right front. MY HAPPY PLACE.

Here there are  thoughts about food and diet and agriculture in general, too.  Even as I started this blog, some of the nuances of how I usually choose to eat were changing.   I’ve discovered / am still discovering what works best for me, a “scientific” sample size of One.  (These things have enabled me to lose  weight and get healthier in other regards, too.) My optimal food plan is semi-Paleo – I do eat legumes (soaked and rinsed), and while I do avoid grains, I have added a few back in, as I found that some have improved my gut health.  I don’t think it is wise to eliminate them entirely, nor to over-indulge.  But everyone’s body differs – there are nuts I CANNOT eat without severe gastro-intestinal distress.

As for the title:  When I started this blog, I lived in suburban Connecticut outside of Danbury.   I knew I wanted to raise livestock after visiting Dad’s girlfriend’s farm in Virginia – she raised (among other animals) goats for meat and angora goats for fiber.  And chickens.  And I’ve always wanted to raise a good portion of my own fruits and veggies – too much shade back at my lot in Connecticut to do much there.  And, my goal still remains to bring meat and/or fiber goats to this farmstead.  (I am not milking goats daily.)

And I prefer to eat foods that someone’s great-grandparent, (not necessarily my own) would have eaten, somewhere on this planet.  Which is reflected in most of the recipes herein.

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As for Now, Late Winter 2020 January 2021:  

I am much closer to some of my goals.   I took early retirement at the end of July, 2016.   I officially moved in to my homestead the winter of 2018, but spent much of the winter and spring recouping from surgery.   But I got chickens and a coop in that May.

My kale crop was awesome that first autumn – it was really about the only thing I had a chance to plant here (other than a superb crop of inedible cannas plants, and a few herbs), as construction around the exterior was still ongoing.

Summer 2019, the raised beds went in.  I grew a few crops there – potatoes, basil, cherry tomatoes were all successful.  The squash got in the ground too late to grow to full size, but they did grow.  I acquired more chickens in 2019 – some intended for meat, but also six more pullets (one failed to thrive and she had to be culled).  Now I’m running two batches of chickens – the larger set in the original coop, the smaller in the tractor – acquired a second coop at the beginning of summer 2020.

I now have quail, and housing outdoors for adult quail.

Potatoes, beets, and greens did wonderfully here the summer of 2020.  So did cucumbers, but I need a tastier variety.

Recipes still play a part – I try to post recipes every Friday, and try to experience world cuisine.  No offal-fear here, either.  While some of the recipes are simple and basic, ever so often I’m really called to stretch my boundaries.

Anyhow, this blog,  ongoing goals for 2021:  

Recipe-wise:  More world-culture recipes along with more home-spun recipes.  More recipes for home grown chickens, which since I have yet to do the fast-growing Cornish Cross birds, tend to require different cooking techniques.

Livestock-wise:  Plotting for sheep, goats or alpaca – not all at once –  in 2022, which requires a good amount of infrastructure that I don’t yet have.  Fencing, barn, paddocks – with planned in space to grow to include those goats, and possibly alpaca.  Yes, I’ll be writing about all this.  Eventually I’d like the homesteading and farming posts (veggie, livestock, preserving the crops, DIY projects) to be about a third of future posts made on this blog.

More just-explorative posts.  Y’never know.

At any rate, please drop by this blog, subscribe and comment to your heart’s content!

Yes, it is me, captured on the wildlife motion detector camera, back when I was heading to work early morning in Connecticut.

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As of the early morning of New Year’s Eve, 2020

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