It happened when I wasn’t paying attention. It must have been a year when the day after Thanksgiving had me focused on leftover turkey or pie. Perhaps it was a year when the day after Thanksgiving seemed like a bonus day off from work or school—a day to go hiking or off to the beach. Whenever it happened, one thing’s for sure: Continue reading
Ben Hewitt speaking at the recent Connecting for Change Bioneers by the Bay Conference in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
If you’re new to Nourishing Words, check out Ben’s recent guest posts:
It’s chilly out there. For some reason, I play this same little game every fall. I refuse to turn on the furnace until November, no matter how bone-chilling the cold may be.
I don’t think it’s a totally crazy game. The October nights are cold, and daytime temps have been in the 50s, but the next few days hold the prospect of sunshine and 70s. With that hope on the horizon, I’m reluctant to batten down the hatches and pull down the storm windows. Continue reading
I originally wrote this column for my “Fresh Today” series in the Concord Monitor, focusing on simple ideas for using fresh, in-season vegetables throughout the year. This one took on a life of its own and I became reluctant about submitting it, for fear that it strikes too opinionated a note. I’m not sure if it will see ink or not.
Nature’s grand culinary design gives us a few foods (I’d argue, many) that are worth waiting for all year long. Corn, strawberries and tomatoes are among the many foods that are so delicious fresh from the farm that there’s just no point risking the disappointment of beauty without flavor. Continue reading
Where do these urges come from, to surround ourselves with the security of stuff, to feather our nests until our nests can hold no more? Or, later, the urge to selectively chuck out of the nest those things that have either no meaning or no use? Continue reading
I’m happy to introduce another guest post from Ben Hewitt, following up on his family’s story of living and farming off the grid in Cabot, Vermont. Ben will be a keynote speaker at the Northeast Organic Farming Association’s (NOFA-NH) Annual Conference, coming up this Saturday, March 19 in Exeter. Farmers, gardeners and all who care about agriculture should plan to be there.
In the comments section following my last post on farming and living with a modest off-grid renewable energy system, I promised a more detailed post on the challenges and rewards. Continue reading
This post relates to the Week Three readings and discussion in our local Menu for the Future course. Whether you’re participating here in Concord, following along from afar or simply have thoughts on this topic—please comment!
We’re a group of eaters, with not a farmer among us. Yet, at the third week of our Menu for the Future course, we dug into organic farming details that aren’t usually part of mainstream consumer discussions about eating organically. Many of us are gardeners, so seeing ourselves as farmers of a sort was fairly easy to do. A group comfortable with the topic at hand, to be sure.
A goal properly set is halfway reached.
~ Abraham Lincoln
What seems like a lifetime ago was actually only 15 months ago. I was lucky enough to be participating in a work-related course in San Francisco that involved a day of personal visioning and goal-setting exercises. I’ve been through a few similar exercises, but this time was different. Continue reading
With appreciation, I offer another guest post from Vermont farmer and author Ben Hewitt. This post is about his family’s experience living and farming off the grid; be sure to read his recent guest posts about food safety issues on Nourishing Words.
When my wife (then girlfriend) Penny and I were looking for land, we didn’t have a lot of options. This is largely because we didn’t have a lot of money and, even then (1997), they weren’t exactly giving away farmland in northern Vermont. We spent a discouraging year tromping through swampy five-acre thickets, trying to convince ourselves that, with enough sweat equity, we could turn the land into something that felt like 50 arable acres. Still, young and naïve as we were, we didn’t fall for our own lies. Continue reading
This post relates to the Week Two readings and discussion in our local Menu for the Future course. Whether you’re participating here in Concord or with a group somewhere else; following along from afar; or simply have thoughts on this topic—please comment!
Great readings this week! Articles included in the Week Two readings for Menu for the Future explored the progression of agriculture over the last 70 years or so from family farms to today’s huge, industrial farms and the resulting ecological and economic changes. Continue reading
