June 4:
Strawberry season has arrived. Tonight we are having homemade Vanilla Pudding with farm fresh Whole Milk and homemade Vanilla interlayered with fresh Strawberries just picked by an Amish family this morning. Yummy.
Banner Photo
May 20:
The Farm is really greening up. Plants are breaking into buds and flowers, under our ever watchful eye. Buffalo Gal, a rose we brought with us from North Dakota, is covered with buds and today she presented us with her 1st flower.
Irises began blooming yesterday. And we were not surprised that the 1st to flower were Irises from Melanie's 2 Grandmas (Ethel and Dorothy, who have both passed). I noted that the Yellow Columbine is also breaking into flower. And the Bleeding Heart just continues to throw out cascades of flowers.
We got 1 inch of rain last night. We did lose a few limbs, but otherwise, the countryside is in that luscious, after rain, spring-moving-into summer, green.
I do remember that my Dad, when he came to our Farm in 2007 just 2 months before he passed, said: "This is paradise. When I go to Heaven, I want to come here." It surely is beautiful here. The landscapes are radiant.
And the Hummingbirds, with all their energy, have just arrived. They buzz about. I don't know how they have all that energy. They wintered in the Yucatan, crossed the Gulf on those tiny wings, and now are setting up home here. I supposed you could say, they are setting up home just like us.
All this makes a perfect backdrop for wedding preparations and for the wedding itself. Is this for real?
About this Blog
Melanie, Glinda, and Richard Crawford share reflections on our journeys to walk paths where the future matters from our new home on Butterfly Hill Farm. That includes recognizing the sacredness of life, living sustainably and simply, reclaiming family history and traditions, growing our own food. We humbly offer this as our story seeking meaning and not as a cookie cutter for others lives. We invite the sharing of your journeys as well.
Photos
Except in very specific circumstances, all photos depicted here were taken on our Farm. Those circumstances off the Farm relate to the purposes of this Farm and this writing exploration. Almost all were taken by 1 of the 3 C's. If not, I try to make sure others are credited. I (Glinda) am usually the one carrying the camera, but not always.
I do my best to gain permissions of Folks whose pictures are shown on this Blog. If for any reason, you are pictured and would like your photo removed, just let me know. Thanks.
I do my best to gain permissions of Folks whose pictures are shown on this Blog. If for any reason, you are pictured and would like your photo removed, just let me know. Thanks.
Visits to this Blog
Glinda
...began her professional career as a Home Economist, later serving as a Home Economics Teacher Educator for 2 decades. In 1995, she moved into analyzing the Human Side of Environmental Issues. She went from studying Humans in their Little Homes to studying Humans in their Big Home, the Earth. Those 2 leggeds were, after all, creating a substantial problem for the Earth, which sustains them. After 30 years in higher education, she became Professor Emerita of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies at the University of North Dakota in 2005.
Glinda has a special interest in analyzing the split Humans have with Nature. Her focus is bringing Humans home to the Earth, opening at long last to the awe, magic, and love of this beautiful Earth whirling in the Great Cosmic Sea. She is a writer, teacher, poet, artist. She is the writer for this Blog, the substance of which will likely become a book she has known she would write.
Recent interview with Fast Recipes: http://www.fastrecipes.com/latest-news/nature%E2%80%99s-recipes:-living-off-the-land-in-missouri-2010061740080/
Glinda has a special interest in analyzing the split Humans have with Nature. Her focus is bringing Humans home to the Earth, opening at long last to the awe, magic, and love of this beautiful Earth whirling in the Great Cosmic Sea. She is a writer, teacher, poet, artist. She is the writer for this Blog, the substance of which will likely become a book she has known she would write.
Recent interview with Fast Recipes: http://www.fastrecipes.com/latest-news/nature%E2%80%99s-recipes:-living-off-the-land-in-missouri-2010061740080/
Richard
...grew up on a 120 acre Farm about 5 miles west of here. Those humble beginnings have had a profound effect on his Life. He was trained as a Wildlife Biologist and later responsible for the Wildlife Management Program at the University of North Dakota for over 3 decades. Retiring in 2007, he is a UND Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biology.
Richard brings to the Farm a lifelong interest in the Natural Sciences (Birds, Wildlife, Prairie Restoration, Ecosystems, Gardening) and the Humanities. As his wife (Glinda) says: "He is one of those few people in our Culture who can still read Nature's story and make it accessible to those around him."
Richard brings to the Farm a lifelong interest in the Natural Sciences (Birds, Wildlife, Prairie Restoration, Ecosystems, Gardening) and the Humanities. As his wife (Glinda) says: "He is one of those few people in our Culture who can still read Nature's story and make it accessible to those around him."
Melanie
...would list a bio a little shorter than her Mom and Dad. That's because she hasn't lived quite so long, which is the normal course of such things. But her bio would be no less interesting and perhaps even more so. She has come to this work and this walk far earlier than her Mom or Dad.
Melanie has an interest in healthy lifestyles. It's not something you read about; it's something you do. She brings her love of life, her travel near and far, her love of people known and unknown, her playful curiosity, and her knowing to Gardening, Raising Chickens, Herbal Healing, and the Culinary Arts. She makes a place for Kids of all Ages on this Little Farm.
Melanie has an interest in healthy lifestyles. It's not something you read about; it's something you do. She brings her love of life, her travel near and far, her love of people known and unknown, her playful curiosity, and her knowing to Gardening, Raising Chickens, Herbal Healing, and the Culinary Arts. She makes a place for Kids of all Ages on this Little Farm.
This Blog includes my exploration (with others alongside) as we seek to gather Family Stories. I have long since known that I cannot completely know who I am or where I am until I reflect on where I came from and those who came before.
Blog Archive
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2008
(396)
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June
(25)
- Imperfection
- Elemental
- Baby Steps
- We Consciously Choose What We Eat
- Dust Baths
- This Is Why We Do What We Do...
- 1st Local Meal of the Season
- Summer Solstice
- Miracle
- Last Frontier
- We Can Do Better
- Big Push
- Gratitude
- Pansies Smile
- Seedlings Arise
- Musings in the Making of Strawberry Preserves
- Rainbows
- Yummy
- Enter from the East
- Always Have Bread on Hand
- Strawberries and Experiments
- Daisy Mae
- Bread Crumbs
- Magic Moment
- Emergence
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▼
June
(25)
Our adventures on ...
- Butterfly Hill Farm,
- Kirksville, Missouri, United States
- In May 2007, we 3 partners (Glinda, Richard, Melanie Crawford) moved to this little acreage in northeast Missouri. We believe life is a sacred gift and we intend to live that practice in this space. This is the story of our journey of exploration and discovery.
Sustainable Lifestyles
Seed and Nursery Catalogs
Good Reads
- National Geographic
- Refuge (Tempest Williams)
- Mists of Avalon (Bradley)
Agrarian Lifestyle
- Backyard Poultry
- Foxfire Series
- Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (Hemenway, 2000)
- Hobby Farms: Rural Living for Pleasure and Profit
- Murray MacMurray Hatchery
- Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy without Chemicals (edited by Ellis and Bradley, 1996))
- Small Farmer's Journal
Inspiration
- The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (Berry, 1999)
- Earth Prayers From Around the World (Roberts and Amidon)
- Peace Is Every Step (Thich Nhat Hanh)
- Bhagavad Gita
Health
- Family Herbal (Gladstar)
- Nourishing Traditions (Fallon)
- Yoga Mind, Body and Spirit (Farhi)
Natural History
- Butterfly Book: Complete Guide to Butterfly Gardening, Identification, and Behavior (Stokes et al., 1991)
- Missouri Conservationist
- Restoring the Tallgrass Prairie (Shirley, 1994)
- Sky & Telescope
- Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers (Ladd and Oberle, 1995)
- The Sibley Guide to Birds (Sibley, 2000)
- Weeds of the Northern US and Canada (Royer and Dickinson, 1999)
Movies
- Erin Brockovich
- Gandhi
- Kundun
- Muppet Movie
- Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe
- Pay It Forward
- Pride and Prejudice
- Rabbit Proof Fence
- Seabiscuit
- Sleepless in Seattle
- Star Wars
- Sweet Land
1 comment:
Hi there,
Doing a little browsing on farm blogs, I came accross yours and greatly enjoyed it.
I thought you might be interested in a blog I run, called www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com Under the first photo post of every day are articles from the International Herald Tribune concerning agriculture, food, and water.
I'm also the author of a book called 'A Place in My Country: In Search of a Rural Dream' which might also interest you too. (For some reviews, please see below.) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-My-Country-Search-Rural/dp/0753823888/ref=pd_sbs_b_title_14
Good luck with your venture,
Kind regards,
Ian
www.ianwalthew.com
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
PRAISE FOR A PLACE IN MY COUNTRY
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, hardcover July 2007; Phoenix paperback May 1, 2008)
'Stressed city couple seeks slower life in Cotswolds idyll'. The premise is so familiar there's even a predictably technical term for it: 'downshifting'. Yet it's hard to think in those terms about A Place in My Country, given the care with which Ian Walthew has skirted all the sprung traps of nostalgia and sentiment. A thoughtful observer and magpie-ish collector of oral history, Walthew has a sharp sense of the absurdities and the assets of his native land, reinforced by years living overseas. In his country life, escaped cows and the hunt ball jostle for space with barn raves and hawkish property developers. Avoiding the usual bland elegy for the rustic and redemptive, his book is a valuable memoir, both personal and social, a meditation on belonging in one of many Englands.'
The Observer
‘I have been reading about the British countryside all my life but this is the first post-modern take on a national asset so routinely taken for granted. Author Ian Walthew takes a 12-inch plough to the cosy complacency that so many apply to the subject and reveals that 21st century rural life is not a place for the genteel - in a corner of Gloucestershire most commonly viewed by outsiders from their 4x4s as they hurry to overpriced weekend retreats, he finds a farming heartbeat that is proud and defiant, defended by a cast of characters that outshine The Archers. A revelation of a book.’
Tim Butcher
Author of Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart
(Galaxy Book of the Year 2008, 3rd Prize Winner)
'Far from being an idealistic paen to the English countryside, the book becomes a hard-edged and moving account of life rural Britain today.'
Sunday Times
'a poignant portrait of country life....the book could have been a rollicking, laugh-a-minute riff on ignorant townies having to ask what exactly a heifer is. There are certainly some fine comic episodes.. but it quickly turns into something more sombre - and more interesting...His beautifully written book is an elegy for an England that is dying, or at least in terminal decline.'
Daily Telegraph
‘When stressed out media exec Ian Walthew panic buys a Cotswold cottage as an escape route from the urban treadmill, he unwittingly acquires a window on a corner of rural Britain at work and at play, and his writer’s eye sees just what’s going on. Walthew has a genuine gift for bringing both people and places to life and marshals his runaway real life narratives with a novelist’s skill. The story of his surprising friendship with his neighbour Norman - who is trying to keep his ramshackle farm and his dignity together with a few strands of baler twine, while his millionaire neighbours embrace the prairie concept of modern industrial farming - is compelling and often deeply moving. And Walthew’s own struggle with age-old issues of identity, friendship, community and a place to call home are fresh, sympathetic and never trying. It’s not the sort of book you’d pick up expecting a page-turner, but that’s exactly what it turn's out to be.’
Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall
‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.
What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’
Financial Times
‘Having lived and worked abroad as a director of the International Herald Tribune for most of his adult life, Walthew, along with his Australian wife, Han, made a snap decision, aged 34, to buy a house in Gloucestershire, and embrace life in the country.
This is familiar territory, but Walthew combines his own story - coming to terms with the untimely deaths of his father and brother - with that of the land and the people who make up village life.
Funny, touching and ultimately very moving, this is a beautiful, unsentimental account of a personal loss that is reflected in the rapidly changing texture of life in rural England.’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Even peripheral characters…really come to life; as does the beauty of the Cotswolds and the harsh realities it conceals. A Place in My Country is an edifying consideration of the English countryside, its rich history and its attempt to adapt in today’s world’
Times Literary Supplement
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