So, last weekend my husband, two grown daughters and I settled comfortably into our daughter’s Toyota Corolla (the greenest car among us as present) and motored down to Chicago to refill our spiritual cisterns from the wealth of cultural treasure only a city can amass and to check out some […]
If you love to cook, you will love Richard Wrangham’s cooking hypothesis. This British primatologist proposes that we humans stepped away from the other apes (who still spend most of their time grinding bitter berries and fibrous roots between their massive molars) when we tossed those tubers into a fire […]
When you decide to be a farmer, you have to start somewhere. How about a row of raspberries? Last April I drove an hour and a half to East Troy WI for the “Berrylicious Workshop” at the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute , which promised and provided hands-on training in pruning, […]
It’s energizing to see so many people blogging green! Here are 5 sites worth checking out. Blogs for guidance on gardening green, dressing green, eating green, housing green and the final blog, GreenStrides a compendium of green products and practices. I hope you will be as energized by these blogs […]
By now, five years into the relationship, I no longer feel it necessary to call my land Ms. Forty-four Acres. Sometimes I feel it’s perfectly appropriate to call her Forty-four, or even Dear old Double F – but that doesn’t mean I actually know her really well yet. Whenever I […]
People say sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s even more true that you can’t see the prairie for the grasses. But we really should see those grasses. Ornamental grasses are gaining respect in landscaping, and truly, what is more beautiful than a sea of grass flowing […]
When we first walked our land, it was a week before Labor Day 2003. I’m sure there were wild flowers everywhere, but I can’t remember them. I was trying to feel the whole 44 acres at once. What is too big? Was it too little? Was it too flat? Was […]
I vividly remember the fireworks of flavor that erupted with my first taste of pizza. I was about 10, and our family was dining with friends. The pre-Martha Stewart mothers in our crowd competed to feed 10 to 20 people at a time with something tasty that didn’t break the […]
I totally believe that we are what we eat and that food is profoundly political. Likewise, I believe we are what we read. Those two concepts will be blending together this fall as my alma mater, University of Wisconsin-Madison, (Go Badgers!) launches its first common reading program that will reach […]
Today my post is a link to an article in On Wisconsin that I wrote this spring about Anne Topham, the godmother of goat cheese. Anne milks her goats and makes her cheeses on Fantôme Farm in The Driftless Area just a few miles from my own 44 acres. Wisconsin […]
Digging in the Driftless 