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Hi, I’m Lisa Brunette, and this is Brunette Gardens, a podcast about gardening and life, with a little snark and a lot of healing heart.

After two years and more than $5,000 spent, I’m letting go of my chicken-keeping dreams.

This might come as a shock to those of you who’ve followed my poultry obsession from the halcyon days of that adorable mobile coop called the 'chickshaw,’ to the tragic total loss of that first flock, and up through the trials and tribulations of my attempts to rotation-graze using electric fences. It’s been an adventure, hasn’t it?

As it’s been a while, let me offer you a warm welcome back to Brunette Gardens! I’m Lisa Brunette, bringing you a garden of healing 🌱 from autoimmune conditions and the trauma at their root ❤️‍🩹.

No ads, no pop-ups, no auto-play videos. People like you fund my work.

Podcasts are mainly for paying members, except for this first one… and maybe some others I decide to kick out for everyone.

What you’ll hear is my narration of the latest essay, with video and a few ad-libbed lines for additional edification and hopefully entertainment. Owing to his cuddly-yet-mischievous nature, you might also get a video-bomb glimpse of Chaco the cat.

This return/reboot is still evolving, and I might bring on guests for discussion, among other possibilities, so let me know what you think in the comments.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.com

Each of the chicks I’ve raised since early spring had a 10-20 percent chance of turning out to be a rooster. That’s the “gender accuracy” given by the hatchery. It’s notoriously difficult to sex baby chicks, so an 80-90 percent accuracy rate is actually pretty good.

Ours is a flock of barred Plymouth Rocks, bearing feathers “barred” in black and white, for an overall effect of thick, salt-and-pepper stripes, an Oreo pattern, if you will. One morning the bird with the brightest feathers, whom I named Double Stuff for that reason, issued forth a call that seemed a bit like… a cockle-doodle-do.

This narrated version is for paying subscribers. Upgrade now for further adventures in chicken keeping!

A fine-feathered flock of garden helpers. By scratching and pecking, chickens till the soil, and they also fertilize it with their poops.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.com

I wasn’t sure I’d get chickens again.

The first time we tried to raise a flock, I lost my favorite feathered friend when she was only 8 weeks old and then the rest of the flock shortly thereafter to predators.

This was all before they’d even started laying eggs.

When asked to describe an herbal family legacy passed down over generations, this writer digs deep to find chamomile tea hiding behind the Nyquil.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

Lisa Brunette of the Brunette Gardens Substack interviews registered herbalist Sarah Donoghue of The Herbalist's Diary on what it's like to practice herbal medicine in the United Kingdom.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

It was highly ironic to have been positioned as the one who can somehow easily go home again, as the idea of “home” for me has always been loaded and complicated. As I told Stephanie on our video call to plan this week’s collaboration, moving back to this place I have called “home” has been in many ways extraordinarily difficult, and I sometimes think I was crazy to do it at all.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.com

Garden tomatoes on Thanksgiving and other unexpected pleasures. The author shares her work to get the garden ready for the winter season, including the removal of a bush.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.com

Baking your own sourdough bread takes time, effort, and patience. This is no convenience food, nor should it be. So why bother to go to the trouble?