Notes from our November homestead

  The knock came in two soft, hesitant raps, like a polite cough.

  I rise from the sofa, silently thankful to be wearing proper pants at the moment, and fling open our hot-pink painted front door to find the neighbor standing ankle-deep in cats. 

  “Sorry,” I watch him gently shake a black-and-white spotted usurper off his boot, “The kittens lurking around our door are waiting to play with the kids. Want a cat?” I offer weakly.

  “Your sheep escaped into my yard.” 

  The neighbor is kind enough to traipse back with me to his pasture and we find three of my lambs lounging serenely in the lush grass. Their legs are folded pertly underneath making their long, spiraling wool drape languidly on each side like the perfect little rugs that they are. The lambs chew with this devil-may-care look in their eye that only sheep-owners can interpret. And we do so while imagining barbecue.

  The escape is actually a good problem: the sheep have stripped the leaves off and trampled the 15 feet tall blackberry mountains that line the spotty fence, granting them access to spots that we couldn’t initially repair when we got here. While our herd is unlikely to completely kill off the blackberries without the help of a tractor, their work has definitely made it easier to manage these carnivorous plants.

The wisps of wool are dead giveaways those wooly vikings have been raiding the countryside.

  I fumble with some lame soccer analogy to give the neighbor a sense of our plan to herd the sheep back through the hole in the fence. He lunges at the now alert lambs and sends them scattering in different directions. I struggle to convey the level of finesse this task requires. All my analogies reveal how psychotically desperate I have been while trying to convince the sheep they need to go somewhere: 

“Imagine that the 20 foot radius around you is a force field,” or 

“Lean so you’re making the suggestion of moving toward them without actually doing it.” or worst of all, 

“Pretend you’re dancing with them.” 

  The neighbor is a quick study, and without revealing my full arsenal of embarrassing metaphors we’ve pressured the sheep back through the hole.

  They escape two more times before a permanent fix is made to the fence. (One of my attempts included three old boards, an oven rack, two pieces of baling twine and an old cement garden sculpture shaped like a Pharaoh head.)

  This vignette feels like a fitting summary of my November: getting things done requires coaxing, strategy, and finesse. Convincing Ozzie to write his letters, squeezing in time to finish article just before Asa wakes up, finagling the budget to include a fun activity for Justin’s birthday —it’s all like pressuring several wily sheep back through a tiny hole in the fence. 

  I don’t know the little stories you tell yourself to coax your sleepy body out of warm bed on a chilly November morning, or the little pep talk that gets you to the gym. Who knows what silly mental metaphors work for you when it comes to getting your work finished or tweaking the grocery budget or orchestrating several loads of laundry. The fact is even if not everything is getting done smoothly, it’s getting done and that’s the most important bit.

  You’re doing brilliantly. And if your circumstances are asking you to step up your game, maybe ask someone who’s been at it longer to share their weird mental tricks and ways of seeing it. 

  May November, and all of its busy loose ends find order in a restorative rhythm of work and rest for you. May you find humor in all things, even when your clever efforts don't pay off right away. You’ve got this.

Want to save the planet? Eat meat.

If you’ve been following my Instagram stories you may have noticed more pro-meat rhetoric from me.
I follow a lot of different voices in sustainable agriculture here on social media, but I have noticed that environmental critiques of eating meat are popping up everywhere lately.

Many of these points are valid based on the way the system is right now, huge volumes of livestock are living in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) where there are no respiring plants to absorb the gas outputs and manure runs off into toxic lagoons. But pastured animals are different, they primarily use land that can’t be cropped, improve the health of the land, and if the soil is healthy livestock gas outputs get reabsorbed into pastures.

Anti-meat advocates say forgoing meat is the quickest way to make a positive impact, but if everyone in the US was vegan, that would only reduce global emissions by 0.5%!! (EPA.gov) Why do we hear that going meatless will help, when US livestock emissions are 3% but our energy emissions are 85%? (EPA.gov) There are always simplistic and reductive messages circulating in our culture because systemic change is harder to enact than a few diet tweaks. Plus, if the corporations responsible for massive land degradation and energy use can blame you for your meat habits, then the focus is off them.

Everyone likes the idea of small changes leading to big results, but in his report about the failure of environmental “spillover campaigns” Cambridge physicist David McKay says, “Don’t be distracted by the myth that ‘every little bit helps.’ If everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little.”

Instead of telling everyone to stop eating meat, we need to eat regeneratively grazed meat and pressure ag corporations to use livestock to restore pasture the way ruminants were designed to do. If we can graze livestock properly, pasture can be a carbon sink and actually counteract the effects of other emissions! #itsnotthecowitsthehow

#yes2meat

Happy National Farmer's Day!

Happy #nationalfarmersday to everyone who grows food for their communities, AND to everyone who supports regional food systems by purchasing local food! 🥳

Every time a new batch of lambs is born to our flock I’m gripped by the sense that food costs so much. Justin, the kids and I love these sweet wooly babies! But before our sheep can nourish and sustain our customers, we have a lot of nourishing and sustaining to give to our sheep.

I live on a really tight grocery budget but when it comes to meat, I know that if I were to buy cheap meat that somebody else absorbed the real cost.

In all likelihood the animal paid the cost by living a stressful, medicated life crammed in ammonia-choked, feces-smeared confinement. (@farmforward)
Or my health will ultimately pay the cost if the antibiotics that made my meat cheaper prevents me from recovering from a mutated bacteria. (@drmarkhyman)
Or my kids will foot the bill when the land degradation caused by bad practices in animal agriculture inflicts more damage to the planet. (@sustainabledish)
Or would I rather the vulnerable populations working in livestock operations and meat factories pay for my meat by accepting low wages for dangerous work —only to be sold out, rounded up, and incarcerated by the very companies who gave them unstable work visas or straight up exploited their immigration status? (@foodchainworkers)

If reading that feels uncomfortable, I get it. It’s not your fault that the system is intentionally designed to hide all these flaws. Food labels can be confusing!

But we all can help carry the cost of eating meat by getting closer to the source.

• Know your farmer. Get on Facebook or Eatwild.com’s directory and find a farmer or farmer-centric cooperative near you.

• Pay your farmer what all that work, stress, and risk is worth. If that feels like a lot of money, use recipes that stretch the poundage of meat (like soups,) learn ways to use cheaper cuts, or split a whole animal with several friends to get that bulk discount.

• Celebrate National Farmer Day by enjoying delicious food raised by someone in your community!

Notes from our October Homestead

The beginning of September is when the idea of fall begins: a new year of school starts, a certain coffee corporation rolls out their gourd-flavored latte prompting vociferous rejection from millennials (who secretly cherish it.) But while September temperatures still blazed high in the 80s, fall’s chunky sweaters and scarves were cast aside by 10am, fall soups were sweatily eaten, fall potlucks were basically identical to summer barbecues. 

    Let’s be real: fall doesn’t really start until October.

    And with our big move to the new farm in July, we didn’t actually start school until this week! As the rain and nip of chill actually start to feel like a change of seasons, I think about how many changes have happened for us in the last year. A new home, new setting and new opportunities surround us as we trickle into the sustainable agriculture community, faith community, and young parent community in Oregon’s Rogue Valley.

    While I’m the kind of person that loves change, shifting dynamics often spark a twinge of anxiety. Where will I find rest and belonging? Will I be enough to meet these new challenges?

    Maybe seeds feel this way as they let go their perch atop a tall, bolted plant and plummet to the unknown earth below. They’re probably not scared: they have everything they need inside to sleep through the winter and make themselves over again in spring. Or maybe the squirrels feel that gnaw of worry that they’re not ready for the changing season, they seem frantic enough. But a squirrel knows what she need too: she isn’t outfitted to make it through winter alone, she depends on the strength of seeds and acorns to survive. The squirrel surrounds herself with the right support to sustain her.

    Some of us have what we need to adjust to a particular change; others share what they have to help everyone make it through. I’ve leaned on Justin, my family and friends to adjust to my changes, but I’ve also listened more than I ever have to a quiet internal courage. This last year I have struggled with postpartum anxiety and found I need to dig deeper from all sources of strength. I’m deeply thankful to all the seeds, (nuts!) and squirrels in my life who have offered me support and given me the chance to do the same for them.

    May you savor the seasonal shift: not only the baked things and ubiquitous pumpkin, but also the change that asks you to draw up the strength of others, your deepest self, and a Higher Love to sustain.

I've joined Sacred Cow's writing team!

I've joined the writing team at Sacred Cow promoting information about ethically raised meat in conjunction with Diana Rodgers' upcoming documentary film, Sacred Cow: The Environmental, Nutritional, and Ethical Case for Better Meat.

If you've noticed an uptick in the cultural emphasis on plant-only nutrition that's because there's a very real agenda out there to smear meat (and not with barbecue sauce!) I'm writing for Sacred Cow because I've experienced the nutritional benefits of better meat, and when it comes to the environmental and ethical problems, it's not the cow, it's the how!

Keep an eye out for articles (especially sheep-related) from me on this exciting new blog!

This one and this one are already released!

The increase in negative messages about meat in the last few years is no coincidence. It’s easy to blame the systemic problems of agribusiness on consumer choices, but that doesn’t really address the underlying problems. The industrial meat industry in many ways falls short of the way animals, workers, and the environment should be treated —but it doesn’t have to be that way, and by purchasing responsibly raised meat and holding agribusiness accountable, we can harness the way livestock was meant to enhance the environment and our nutrition.

If you care about where your food comes from, be sure to follow @sustainabledish and go to Sacred Cow to support the documentary film’s post-production.

Supporting Family Farms via the Northwest Farmers Union

I noticed that in most of the country refers to the District of Columbia as "Washington," while Washington State we call our nation's capital, "DC." I let everyone else's bit of PNW ignorance slide last month while visiting Capitol Hill with the National Farmer's Union for its annual legislative fly-in.

Almost four hundred farmers from around the country met with their representatives to talk about issues facing small family farms and to meet as a group with the USDA.

In August I joined the board of directors serving the Northwest Farmer's Union as the newly-elected board's secretary. Next month we will have an exciting strategic planning meeting in the mountains where we'll dial in our mission to serve family farms in the Pacific Northwest.Right now I’m sitting in an airport waiting to join 380 farmers from across the country, gathering with the @nationalfarmersunion in Washington DC and meeting with their representatives to advocate for policies that support family farmers and ranchers.

It’s super important for lawmakers to hear how their policies directly impact farmers’ livelihoods and farming communities, and (among other issues we covered) lately things have been unbearable for farmers who are impacted by the trade war with China. As negotiations drag on, families are losing their farms and crops are flooding our own markets, driving down the price, or just rotting in fields and warehouses!!

If you’d like to come with us next time or just be an advocate for family farms, the @nationalfarmersunion is an incredible organization supporting farmers. If you’re in Oregon, Washington, or Idaho you can join me in the @northwestfarmersunion and help link all the Northwestern small farming and sustainable ag organizations to provide a strong voice for PNW farmers in DC!

Meet Our Neighbors: Sugar Plum Acres

It’s opening day at @sugarplumacres, a delightful peach orchard just down the street from us!
There’s never a time when eating seasonally makes more sense than when I’m inhaling the perfect, juicy peach.

Once we’re more settled in at the new place we’ll be back for boxes and boxes of peaches for canning this sunshiny summer sweetness to enjoy all year long!

Check out Sugar Plum Acres’ website for more information about U-pick days and their lovely varieties of peaches, tomatoes and flowers!

After a Season of Waiting: Fruition

Dripping from the fruiting plants in our new backyard: plums, peaches, apples, figs, blackberries, pears, pluots, hazelnuts, and almonds.

Inside the houses we finish painting projects, thin piles of objects needing a proper place, make repairs and swap out appliances.

The season for harvest is whirlwind of working and savoring all the sweetness. I can’t believe we’re finally here on this homestead, literally getting to taste the fruition of all our waiting!🍐

Keeping Chickens is not Capitalist

Ozzie: “The chickens’ job is to lay eggs. We give them the food, and they give us the eggs. But they’re not laying yet.”
Me: “Well that doesn’t seem like a very good trade —all food and no eggs! Should we skip feeding you if you forget your chores?”
Ozzie: (with a ferocious scowl) “No. You always have to feed me.”

Welcome to Hymas Family Farm

The ladder sways slightly as I tug on the strip of kitschy wallpaper that has (for several decades) trimmed the dining room of our 1940s farmhouse. Mercifully, the paper peels away from the wall in one satisfying, intact piece as I lean as far as I dare from my rickety perch.
Like most of the extra objects bequeathed to the house the ladder is functional but worn: splotched with a dozen different colors of projects and held together with a shoelace.

Ozzie bursts into the house with two handfuls and a mouthful of unripe pears. Selah follows close behind brimming with descriptions of their foraging, her cheeks flushed with satisfaction.

Later in the evening the Hymas clan gathers for pizza on the back lawn. The evening light stretches long through the reaching canopy of fruit and nut trees, illuminating the carpet of ground cover plants. Roses, peonies, lillies and onion blossoms peep through tangles of ivy, mint, and dozens of other plants I have yet to identify (thank God for the iNauralist app!)
The kids push the silent lawnmower (shifted to neutral) across the lawn, a ride so labor intensive that Ivy falls forward as the sleeping equipment rolls free from a catch under one of the tires. She fizzes with laughter, springing up from the soft grass as the boys fight to be the next driver on the riding-mower’s throne.

This our first night in the farmhouse we call home.

Announcement!

We have been keeping a secret:
we found a place for this sign,
a farm of our very own!

Tomorrow we formally sign and end a long season of waiting, hoping, searching —tomorrow we dive into a brand new adventure with more beautiful, messy learning. .
I’m choked up thinking about how deeply Justin and I have felt a calling to tend land together and make a space that feeds and nurtures others —what an incredible gift to finally make that happen.

Thank you @briandruihet for helping us find our farm, and @adavidmoore, @tmlovesam, and @hymasdebbie for supporting our dream!

Our beautiful cast iron pan logo was designed by @marnimanning and this incredible sign was hand cut and painted by @handsomehandsigns.

Thank you to everybody who listened to us go on and on about our wild ideas, who cried with us when the first farm fell through, and who encouraged us through the waiting. Party soon!!

Brian Druihet found us our farm and Ginny Duffy hooked us up with a fantastic mortgage.

In My Textile Studio: Moonphases

Asa is nine moons old! (Is that a measurement?)
This bedspread for my friend Lea was dyed with indigo using batik wax to make the moons and block printing ink to make the phases.

I’ve tried lots of different fun techniques in indigo and decided that batik is not my jam! The effect is made by drawing your design in a wax that will resist the indigo dye and then reveal your design in the fabric’s original color when you remove the wax. It makes such a cool effect and maybe I’ll try it more with different wax, but for now I am happier with the brightness and clarity of block printing ink on top of the indigo.

I think even if your current creative strategy is working for you, it’s important to try new styles and stretch yourself by learning new techniques. Even if you don’t end up ever using that different method again, seeing your work from a different perspective can improve what you do.

What is something new you’ve tried to up your creative game?

Easter Sunday: All Things are Made New

Renewal is such a hopeful idea. It embraces the reality of where we are without downplaying what we’re going through, and yet it promises something so much better. 

On this Resurrection Day may you be made new again like a bright spring morning who’s winter has long melted away. May God reach into the painful places in your life and renew both your circumstances and your courage to face them. May the cynicism we get from living in a disappointing culture be reborn into innocent hopefulness, like a baby’s guileless wonder at a tiny chick.

May we all experience a taste of resurrection on this shimmering spring day.

Revelation 21:5 “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Lavender Ameraucanas: I Refuse to Feel Guilty About Loving Pretty Things

In a batch of chicks we raised five years ago (and then gave away when we moved) there was a beautiful hen who’s icy, gray/blue feathers I have never been able to forget. When I started seeing pictures of #lavenderameraucana chickens I remembered my lovely bird and knew we needed to have some lavenders of our own. I kept a look out for two years before I came upon some available in my area! On Friday we picked up these lovely purple chicken babies!! (And some silkies to boot!) For a while I felt guilty for liking things because they are beautiful. Any time I let aesthetics dictate my choices I wondered if I’d be perceived as vain or superficial. I’ve decided that beautiful things, like flowers, textiles, and purple chickens, serve an essential purpose to capture our imagination and give us joy. 

Chickens bred for feather hue could be misunderstood as humans’ frivolous over-involvement in nature, but these specific lines for Lavender Ameraucanas were recognized by the American Poultry Association because they also carried the essential traits of a healthy, quality chicken.

I came to respect the APA’s rigorous process after writing a story about heritage poultry advocate, @frank.r.reese, who told me that the qualities of a good show chicken (which sound prissy on paper) are actually the same traits that make them ideal for pasture-based farming.

I say don’t feel fake or superficial for liking pretty things! If aesthetics happen to be an essential part of your wellbeing then wear that red lipstick, paint your walls, and get those purple chickens!! 🔮🕺💜

How Successful is Farming?

Around this time seven years ago, Justin came back from another frustrating day as a night nurse’s aid, giving shelf-stable jello to patients who had just undergone abdominal surgery. We were newly married and I was weeks away from finishing my theology degree when Justin strode into our apartment after his hospital shift, threw down his backpack and declared, “I WANT TO BE A FARMER.” This statement practically knocked me over. The only thing I knew about farming was from “Little House on the Prairie“ and their farming life seemed riddled with hail storms and barn fires. I panicked, thinking that farming would be a hardscrabble, scratched-out existence.

Seven years later, among multiple jobs and career paths, farming has actually been the most abundant product of our work. This year, our third season of lambing, we’ve averaged two babies for every mama and haven’t lost a lamb yet!

As I look over our flats of garden starts I see some boxes exploding with tiny plants (I spilled the lettuce seeds🙄) and other little boxes are empty. It’s not always possible to predict what thing in our life is going to sprout and which will be more difficult.

I believe we can’t depend on the success or failure of our work to make us feel happy about our lives, because everything is in flux. Today I want to lean into the transcendent hope of a God who promises to be with me regardless of how my efforts pan out!

#deuteronomy316

Spring Lambs!

This little ewe lamb is April fooling you —babies don’t eat hay! While the flock eats, even the smallest lambs mimic their mothers, pretending to nibble. They won’t start really feeding off of solids for another month or so.

Our flock is two thirds of the way through lambing season and so far we’ve got two healthy babies for every mama! Zero losses!!

Last week we got sixteen babies all in one huge group! It was exhausting but actually super helpful. We achieved this by putting our ram outside the ewe pen for several weeks to encourage all the ewes to “sync up.” Since we have some stragglers who haven’t lambed yet, we’re thinking either we should put the ram nearby earlier, or our first-time ram just needed a couple rounds to do his job. 😬😂

Every season we learn, every season we dial things in a little more. 🐏

How Can a Farming Mama "Do It All?"

At the grocery store yesterday the cashier called me “octomom” and I laughed but realized that with most kids in school during day, families probably don’t go out with their full squad and regalia as much anymore. I don’t think three kids is very many, but no matter where I go, I get the comment “well you have your hands full,” or “you must be busy.”

I usually just laugh and acknowledge that the person is intending to connect with me, but I cringe when these words come with overtones indicating the person assumes I must be overwhelmed or exhausted. I really enjoy being out and about, so usually when I run into these people I’m actually energized and having fun.

The implicit cultural expectation I can sometimes sense is that kids are an impediment to what adults want to do.

To me, it doesn’t feel weird or extraordinary to bring my kids along on all my adventures. It just makes sense. My kids and I study, play and work together; we spend much of our day on things that enrich all of our lives, like caring for the sheep, making with our hands, or tidying our space.

Our family has intentionally molded the kid agenda to be more accommodating to adult needs and vice versa. If I’m out with the kids I can’t make as many stops as I would if I were by myself: I do have to read my kids and give up on activities if everyone is too tired. But on the other hand, Justin and I have consistently brought them everywhere from their earliest days and nurtured their patience and flexibility so we could all live an active life together. I have no problem with promising special snacks for good behavior on a trip.
(And, assuming I behave as well as my kids do, I get a treat too!)

Do we have meltdowns: of course. But if things are going badly, it’s a moment to slow down, ask the kids to consider their feelings and then ask them to work with me (“are you hitting your sister because you’re feeling tired of walking through the feed store? Once we finish getting things for the sheep we can go. Can you help me pick out which color sheep halter?”)

How do you help keep your kids engaged when you’re out and about?

March Dispatch: Spring Is Blooming

Fat Tuesday: How to Love All the Fat

Today is Fat Tuesday, which is the day before Lent begins in the church calendar. During Lenten season, generations of Christians have traditionally given up something like meat, wine, or sweet foods during the 40 days before Easter as a way of setting an intention towards self-examination.

But before it’s time to be all serious and reflective, it’s time to PARTY! Mardi Gras is about enjoying all the beauty and deliciousness at once. It’s about extravagance and lavishness not only for the sake of clearing the pantry, but also to start off the resurrection season with joy and fun. People all over the world have celebrated Fat Tuesday for thousands of years but it seems weirdly absent in our calendars, maybe because we have a cultural problem with fat.

Let’s stop taking advice from the food and beauty industries and love fat for the critical, life-giving lipid that it is! The fat of pastured animals is packed with tons of key nutrients and collagens that help us rebuild our body! Fat is critical to helping our bodies store vitamins, keep energy reserves, have babies, and maintain healthy brain function among other important things. Fat is the flavor: all the best things condensed up when we need them.

On Fat Tuesday, the day before 40 days of confession, we confess that we need fat. It’s been a helluva year and we need to enjoy the goodness of this life we’ve been given.

So on this Fat Tuesday:

• wear your most fun, fancy outfit,

• put on all your crazy jewelry,

• turn your music up loud,

• use those dishes that you’re always worried will break,

• wear the bright lipstick/hat/accessory that you got because you love but are worried is too extra,

• enjoy that delicious beverage,

• send a garishly insane GIF to your people expressing how much you love them,

• make that tasty dessert,

• give too-long hugs, and

• SAVOR all the fat of living an abundant life!

Questions for My Friends

So in my Instagram stories yesterday I posted some questions so I can get a better idea of who you are and what you care about. I asked “1. What are your values, 2. what are your dreams, and 3. what are you struggling with?” What I learned from your responses was really surprising to me:

1• The number one value you shared with me was honesty (which you also called integrity, authenticity or vulnerability.) This was incredible. For an app that slaps filters on everything, I think it’s so neat that we are all aware of our desire for real ness and being brave with our truest selves!!
2• Almost every single dreams response included a desire for a life more connected to our values and the people we love. A lot of that was centered on farming and pairing down to live simpler, but many of you also dreamed about new experiences and honing your craft.
3• A LOT of us are struggling with the same things! If you can call Instagram sticker answers data, well then the odds are that most people in the room are going through similar or at least similarly tough things, and are feeling the way you are feeling!

It was so brave of you to share those things with me. Thank you so much! I keep thinking about what a gift it is to put my heart out here and find such meaningful connection. I have a really exciting opportunity this next week that I shared about in my stories tonight, and this exciting thing came about partially because someone was on the other side of the screen at a moment when I was feeling not very competent or put together —but I decided to just be honest about it and share our journey.
All I can say is: BE BRAVE! 🌻