Writers tend to return to a few themes repeatedly . Maybe it’s because preoccupation with an idea is what drives someone to write, or maybe each person just has room for a few big concepts, the prism through which they... Read More ›

This will be a brief bulletin, as befits the life of its subject , the young doe who died next to the driveway yesterday. Death happens on the farm with some regularity, whether planned or not, and I am therefore... Read More ›

It didn’t take long yesterday, after I closed the north door and locked the sheep in, for the barn to get a cozy, comfortable feeling. This is not, generally, the feeling you strive for in a barn on the eve... Read More ›

For the last 15 months we’ve all learned much more science than most of us ever wanted to know – from microbiology (messenger RNA) to epidemiology (herd immunity) to aerodynamics (how far does your spit fly when you chat at... Read More ›

It’s the little things that get you. The pebble in your shoe. The thorn under your fingernail. The sentence in that document you missed on first reading that changes the meaning of everything. On those nights when I awake and... Read More ›

The prematurely warm, dry spring we’ve enjoyed, worrisome to farmers and gardeners as much of New York state has teetered on the edge of draught, has had one spectacular positive effect. The slow succession of bloom we see in most... Read More ›

We all have habitual thought patterns that we use to make sense of the chaos of the life around us. One of mine, which started as soon as I started cohabiting with farm animals, is a tendency to perceive universal... Read More ›

I am pleased to announce that Turkana Farms has officially entered a new phase. Today we become the Turkana Farms Livestock Education and Protection Fund (TFLEPF). Now that the legalities have been finalized, I can explain how we evolved to... Read More ›

This weekend many people will, at various truncated Zoom seders and gatherings diminished to COVID safe numbers, tell the story of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. The emphasis of the Passover story as we tell it at the... Read More ›

It has been a tough couple of weeks. Four days of post-vaccination malaise, followed by a routine maintenance visit for my car that became a $1600 bill, in turn followed by juggling writing of a trial brief in my law... Read More ›