Firewood

There is something soul- satisfying about getting firewood when you are in the midst of a real winter… Libby supervises Tyler Scartaccini and Tom Rupenacht’s delivery of a good load of what we call “cedar”. It is actually a juniper but locally the common name is reserved for alligator juniper. This is the species with …

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Clarissa Dixon Wright R. I. P.

John Hill, (in the middle above), better known here as “Johnny UK”, sent us a note saying that Clarissa Dixon Wright (right above) had died. The surviving member of the “Two Fat Ladies” cooking duo, champions of real food and best known in this household for the multi- species, multi -organ meat loaf known as …

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Woodpile

Them that knows, knows–  the importance of this task, the beauty of it, and the satisfaction when you have split enough to relax…

Blizzard Whiteout

Eastern Montana writer John Moore alerted me to the great October blizzard in South Dakota a few days ago. I told him I would blog on it, but assumed something of such magnitude would soon get out. But nooo… apparently the actions of petty bureaucrats top any need to report the effects of the greatest …

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Quick Update re Water

Going to Albuquerque for the second time in three days, trying to get Passenger pigeons up and flying, and generally overcommitted. But the water news has been ludicrously inadequate. We should never have lost water, and should have it back in a week; the situation only has a tenuous connection with drought. Everything I see …

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Breaking News

Magdalena has gone national and may be on your evening news, but for an infuriating reason: our little town has just lost all its water in a well collapse, and though ranches with their own wells are all right, there is no water available for our village– around a thousand residents– and therefore none in …

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Tumbling Tumbleweeds

What drought and an invasive Asian exotic can do in a hard winter– all this and zero at night, at Lee Henderson’s where we chase things- photos from Lee. That is his house on the right in the third pic; in the first, that fencerow is likely higher than your head. Ranching for a living, …

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A Young Farmer’s Perspective

NC sent us a link to a fascinating Op- Ed in the Denver Post by an intelligent and analytical young farmer. She says: “People all say words like “farm fresh,” “sustainability,” but they don’t want to actually pay for what it actually costs me to make it. Almost everyone tries to talk me into lowering …

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