***Insert Faulknerian monologue here*** Think Hal Hollbrook’s playing Mark Twain doing his impression of James Faulkner. January, when the trees snap because the weight of their desolation combines with the character of the wind. Building Hugelkultur Mounds January, when the salt and sand on the road, a veritable boiled ocean, will disintegrate the underside of your truck and kill the wildflowers when it all melts. January, when shelves are as naked as an opossum born out of

We have been a little busy around the ol’ homestead so I’m just now getting around to newslettering today when it is a frogstrangler of a rain outside. We can never seem to get all of a single project done at one time.  Instead, we have half a dozen projects strewn about the farm getting worked on depending on availability of parts, or tools, or if it is too windy or too wet, etc. The one project we got started on and finished all in a row was making new cold frames.  Simple

It has been colder and wetter than expected so far this month, and I am a little slow getting the newsletter out, but here we go. We are the third owners of our house.  The guy who built it, literally with his own hands, and his wife, were the first family who lived here.  They were an older couple and didn’t need anything fancy, and let’s just say, they didn’t see any need to build ‘to code’ out here in the boonies.  The second family was the father and mother of my bride. 

For real, Autumn? As I write this, we are preparing for the first freeze of the year.  Thanks, Autumn.   Planting continues for the hundreds upon hundreds of daffodil bulbs, ranunculus corms, and peony roots that are going in this fall.  Ranunculus 'Tecolote Cafe' The woody perennials like the smokebush and weigela and hydrangea are still waiting to get into the ground.  We are going to move them into the greenhouse Saturday, along with a space heater, to keep them safe in th

We are finally getting down to some more reasonable temperatures, which means time to stop some things, start new ones, and even do a wonderful chef/farmer event at the Orion. Delivery day. For starters, we joined up with the Huntsville Food and Farm Hub . These folks are great, I can’t say enough good things about them, but I’m going to try. First of all, their shopping website is clean, quick, and super organized. Second, they have the personnel, the expertise, the crew,

All about expansion and growth.  This past year we have been building, building, building! 

(This is a short fiction piece I wrote a few years ago.) Remember growing a bean sprout on your grade school classroom windowsill? You’d...

We lost Daniel's brother David in January. He was the youngest of the three brothers, and not really who you'd expect to go first,...

By definition, winter is a slower time for us growing types. Plenty of projects planned here but also plenty of "hey, I bet you weren't...

Well, it's really not supposed to be this temperature here right now. And I'd like to register an official complaint, plsthx. We've spent...

I feel like I've been introducing us for decades, and I have...as leatherworkers, as artists, and now as farmers. We've always "farmed"...