sastyk
Posts by this author
December 2, 2012
That would have been the title of _Making Home_ except it is way, way too wordy, but that's the gist of my book - that we don't have a choice but to change our way of life, so we might as well find the best possible way to do it. The long version (and a lot of details about how) is in the book…
December 2, 2012
I probably won't get to look at them until after Isaiah's birthday and our Chanukah party next weekend, but the seed catalogs are piling up, and I'm starting to think about gardens again. I can't wait to sink down into the couch with a stack of catalogs and dream.
This was a tough year for…
November 25, 2012
I've been making a lot of quick breads lately - partly it is the season, and they freeze and store well. They make good gifts, good afternoon snacks for the kids, good "Oh, crap, we're just about out of bread and I need it ASAP" solutions and other happy things. Quick breads, for those of you who…
November 25, 2012
A friend of mine who volunteered at a shelter in New York City told me this story over Thanksgiving. The shelter she worked in responded to the range of people affected by the crisis. Many of them, as always in a crisis, were those who were already struggling and marginalized - illegal immigrants…
November 20, 2012
There are, of course, a lot of critical issues going on right now, and you can count on your blogiste to keep you up on them. Besides the fallout from Sandy, crisis of arctic sea ice and all the agricultural issues that need to be brought to the light, it can be hard to keep up. But I think we…
November 20, 2012
So what's on for Thanksgiving dinner at your place? Wanna pass on that favorite recipe that you simply can't get away with not making?
Here's the (still slightly tentative) menu for us - w e just added a few more guests at the last minute, and I might find myself compelled to add more food, even…
November 16, 2012
So the kids didn't come into care yesterday, which means we can go back to being our usual slacker selves about putting away the legos, tinker toys and other choking hazards - until the next batch of little ones arrived. I admit to a mix of relief and sorrow. Relief that the children in…
November 9, 2012
Last Friday afternoon my mother and step-mother came to visit. My mother had surgery on her foot back in the summer and has had a long, slow recovery, and is only now able to travel and drive, so this was the first visit in nearly six months. As we sat around the table, we joked that it would be…
November 9, 2012
This essay hits the nail on the head, and could pretty much have appeared in the New York Times, minus some vocabulary:
“I was just watching a CNN news story about how much damage Sandy has caused in comparison to Katrina, Ike, or last year’s storm that ravaged the Northeast, and it dawned on me: ‘…
November 9, 2012
The cover of _Green Sex_ is now out (and you can pre-order if you want!): The book will be out next summer.
November 9, 2012
I wrote this five years ago, but I think all the discussion of free-range parenting merits a reconsideration. My kids are now 7, 9, 11, and 12, and they range much further and freer than they did five years ago, but still I'm more careful than my parents - not because of fear of strangers, but…
November 1, 2012
I was in Boston this weekend visiting my sister, so didn't have a chance to reprise my Irene prep post or any of the other approximately two billion (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration) posts I've made over the years about how to prepare for a natural disaster, but I'm still getting emails from people…
October 25, 2012
AP Wire - As it heads rapidly towards energy independence, the US has been dubbed "The New Middle East" by Energy Department officials, hoping desperately that it will be true. Slightly rising oil production, a lot of shuffling paper around to make "liquids" look like oil, and a new policy of…
October 23, 2012
I was asked this by a friend recently, and it has been stuck in my head (even though the whole idea requires an egomaniacal suspension of disbelief) - "If you could sit down to dinner with the people you think see the world we're in most clearly and spend dinner working on how to change things and…
October 21, 2012
A week ago, one of our former foster sons celebrated his ninth birthday. He's now living with family in another state, and we have kept in regular touch. We sent a gift, a card with some pictures we thought he'd enjoy, and on the afternoon of his birthday, we tried to call and wish him happy, but…
October 21, 2012
At least they do in The Onion.
“Citizens are advised to bid farewell to parents, children, and any other friends or family they haven’t seen in a while,” Frieden told reporters, adding that if you live anywhere in the Northeast, you should definitely call within the next 48 hours, if not by tonight…
October 21, 2012
Hi Folks - Sorry for not announcing this sooner. Here are the winners. Email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com with your address!
Where There Is No Doctor: Karen (for her daughter)
Where There Is No Dentist: Sarah
Where Women Have No Doctor: Farmer Amber
Thanks again to the kind donor who sent them and…
October 11, 2012
I gather from the polls that there's a tight race for which of two violent, torturing, mass-murdering or potentially mass-murdering (Romney has had no opportunity to send out automated killer drones over civilian populations yet, but since he has every intention of doing so, the difference really…
October 11, 2012
Whenever I mention to people that my stove set my house on fire last week, they assume it must be my wood cookstove. But no, it was the electric stove that nearly burned down the house last week. I was canning raspberry jam on a warm indian summer's day, and thinking about our anticipated sukkah…
October 11, 2012
We missed frost earlier this week by a degree or two, just enough to clip the basil (basil is wussy that way ;-)), but tomorrow night should be definitive. We've moved from steaming amber spice orchards (as the poet puts it) to "post-frost" quiet. We brought the pumpkins in earlier this week,…
October 5, 2012
A reader asked me to comment on this video critiquing Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's challenge to Ontario consumers to spend ten more dollars a week on local, Ontario produced food. My first comment is that people who speak like affectless zombies probably should stick to the written word,…
October 5, 2012
(Athena takes her ease)
A couple of readers have asked me to describe all the people and critters on our farm - they are newer readers or old ones who know things have changed a bit but not how, so I thought I'd do a series of short posts introducing you the residents. For some reason, I…
September 28, 2012
A few years back Stuart Staniford, (who is one of the most brilliant people I know) and I had a lively debate about the future of small scale agriculture over at The Oil Drum. Stuart argued that agriculture would continue to get bigger and more industrialized, because its fossil fuel dependency…
September 28, 2012
From Simon Black at Business Insider:
The researchers’ analysis went a step further, though; they modeled the relationship between food prices and social unrest to reach a simple conclusion– whenever the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)’s global food price index climbs above 210,…
September 28, 2012
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes…
September 24, 2012
It is the nature of popular books to inspire people to wildly overstate their importance. The most stunning example is Abraham Lincoln's statement upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862 “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war.” While _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was…
September 21, 2012
So I know that some contributors and book giveaway winners are still waiting for their copy of _Making Home_ and I offer you profuse apologies. When I was out of town and a friend really wanted to sell copies at an event, Eric gave her some books. Actually, all the books. He didn't realize there…
September 21, 2012
In 2011 I wrote an essay about how the convention of escape undermines our thinking about the environmental crises we are facing. A kind reader of mine emailed to tell me about how she uses that essay "Outrunning the Boom" in her classroom, and her wonderful students responded with this video. …
September 21, 2012
Most of the comments people make about our slightly changeable and somewhat odd family are lovely. Like all parents my husband and I love hearing how beautiful our kids are, how well behaved (even when it isn't always true), how nice it is to see us all together, what fun it is to see a big family…
September 19, 2012
40% of all food produced worldwide, and nearly half of all food produced in the US goes to waste. When you break down the realities of food waste, you see that in the developing world, much of the waste is due to lack of ability to preserve food - no refrigeration means that sheep you slaughtered…