This typewriter joined our family after going unloved for several decades in storage as a technological revolution swept the world. Incorporating it into daily life has revolutionized my life. “I really enjoyed writing that letter to my Dad.” I don’t believe this statement has ever passed from my lips, but yes, I actually said this! … More 15 ways a typewriter changed my life in just 9 days.
Installing that clothesline atop our deck, after arguing over options for 18 months, feels amazing. Our entire household economy depends upon learning to use this space we’re stewarding, a 113-year-old home set upon a 50 X 140-foot lot, most effectively. All our income is generated from a three-legged stool—farm, art, writing—in this place of surprisingly … More Eccentricities Open a Portal
Prognosticating, 18 years ago, I saw this day coming as a lumbering freight train. Impossible to stop. Inbound with a load of depression to feather our nest. Outbound with all our kids. Always in the distant future, I didn’t think about it much… Twindom overwhelmed us for centuries, it seemed. From day 1, we felt … More How to make a decision
Harvest day was too damp and cold for Shawna to pack adjacent to the walk-in cooler, forcing me to make a hundred+ back and forth trips. On each journey, hauling cut microgreens in large totes (back-and-forth three times for every stem), I paused to appreciate the tulips. Both coming and going. Before this, I hadn’t … More Simple Beauty Carries You
“A hoarder is someone with an unusual ability to see beauty in the ordinary.” I heard Malcolm Gladwell say that during a harvest, and had to pause and write it down ( the Dragon Psychology 101 episode, which aired at the midpoint of 2020). Exactly two years and twenty days ago, I rescued these ancient … More Boots. A love story.
This is a volunteer. I plant thousands of black oil sunflower seeds each week. Apparently one had a mind of its own, dropped through the cracks, and cast its future into the slipstream of fate. Washed downstream by some deluge, it took root right here, mere inches from the edge of all things. I spotted … More A Good Woman is Hard to Find
Overwhelmed by the cacophonous crowd below, I retreated to a solitary corner of a long leather couch upstairs with a book—one man awkwardly weighing down the stern of a canoe. Meanwhile, Shawna’s painting was quietly winning the People’s Choice Award below: Nursing a migraine that began 12 hours ago, and which now accompanies me here … More Migrainous Musings In The Dark
I’ve planted tens of thousands of seeds in a scene that looks just like this, more times than I’d care to count this spring… The thermostat seems stuck between 33 and 38 degrees. The sun is all but snuffed out. Even today, snowflakes have blown around amidst the apocalyptic-looking scene as if a nuclear winter … More Keep Showing Up. Especially if you’re depressed!
I wrote the following piece for the Garbanzo Gazette, which is a quarterly publication put out by the Whole Foods Co-op for its 12,000+ members. I’m sharing it here, because it contains the germ of a critical message I’m continually working on in life and in my upcoming book. Here’s a 48-second video I filmed … More Indulge your idiosyncrasies. They make you YOU!
Seven men and six women, a full baker’s dozen, blew by me atop the meringue-like crust as if I was standing still. Most were in full lycra suits. Muscular buttocks all, 26 in total, striding and gliding as poetry in motion—bodies and brains perfectly aligned in a complex task— the very picture of focus, while … More Delighting in the slipstream of others
