Blog

  • The Circle of Poverty Spins Faster

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    Back in the mid 1980s, when I was a newly single mother of four, I went back to work with a nearly blank resume. I took one low-paying job, then somehow landed a better one, as assistant to the young president of a wholesale company.

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  • An Acre of Land: Self-reliance and the New Homesteader

    A small flock should be part of the plan.
    A small flock should be part of the plan.

    I couldn’t sleep replaying in my mind the many dire predictions about the future of our food supply. The bees are in trouble, invasive weeds are establishing themselves in new environments, harmful insects and plant diseases are becoming more menacing.

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  • Farm Ethics: On Taking a Life

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    The six week old pullet chick came hopping over to me the second I stepped into the brooder stall. I could not see, at first, what caused her gait to be so uneven. As I reached for her, she darted about eighteen inches away from me and then stopped. Then I saw that the lowest part of her leg was actually dragging behind her.

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  • African Violets: Propagation and care

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    The houseplant that blooms year-round to add beautiful color inside when the landscape is gray outside is the African Violet. Growing and propagating African Violets is new to me, and I seem to have a knack for it, or maybe just good lighting.

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  • Plenty #2 — Berkshires Author Alana Chernila Launches “The Homemade Kitchen”

    Plenty #2 — Berkshires Author Alana Chernila Launches “The Homemade Kitchen”

    Practical guiding principles point to cooking and eating habits that make sense for families.

    Berkshires author Alana Chernila launches her second book, "The Homemade Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking with Pleasure" in October, 2015; submitted photo.

    Berkshires author Alana Chernila launches her second book, “The Homemade Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking with Pleasure” in October, 2015; submitted photo.

    Alana Chernila has been piecing together a philosophy about food at least as early as becoming a mom. Her first contacts with preparing meals, often with vegetables she helped raise, goes back to her own childhood. Through writing about her journey in the culinary realm, Alana has crystallized her experiences interacting with ingredients into some common sense grains of kitchen wisdom. With “The Homemade Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking with Pleasure,” (Clarkson Potter, 2015) these precepts are offered to help the entire process of food preparation and enjoying simpler and, well, more pleasurable.

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