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The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
6d ago
“Homelessness.  I think it’s a big problem.  But is it one we want to tackle?”* The question appears on the front page of the March 7th issue of the Times Journal, our local newspaper.  It was asked by a Lieutenant-in-Charge at a nearby village meeting convened to discuss a proposed affordable housing project at our former county jail.  Half of the project has been earmarked for those in need of supportive services (which includes housing for the homeless). The officer’s question sticks in my craw as I read on to the next article, about a main street shop in Cobleskill that ..read more
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These final days of winter.
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
1w ago
He can’t play the guitar.  He can’t do chores.  He can’t help me clean the cafe to get it ready to open. Then we remembered how we used to spend those final, restless days of winter, when the sun would shine one moment, and ice, hail and rain would fall from the sky the next, and mud coated everything, everything, everything.   We painted Easter Eggs.   So out come the dyes, the wax, the dozens and dozens of eggs gifted to us by the pullets who are laying like crazy these days.  And Bob sits down to one of the few activities that can take his mind off the broken arm ..read more
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Poor guy.
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
3w ago
Yes.  I got a lovely poem for my birthday. The other part of the story was that we got to spend the weekend in the ER after Bob fell on the ice while doing chores.  He broke his arm in two places.  He typed that poem up anyhow, even though his arm was blown up enough to look like the balloons my brother and I used to make with A.I. gloves (a great source of amusement that only farm kids will know about). Today the swelling is finally down enough to get his cast, but he’s crestfallen.  He’s just learned he’ll  be out of commission for another two-three months at least ..read more
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Every Day
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
1M ago
Turned 50 on Monday.  Woke up to this beside my bed, my gift from Bob: Every day, we sit with the stream. As the spark of Venus fades into the wakening  embers of dawn over the field,  we turn to the path that takes us into the woods,  threading through the trees, crossing rows of cobble,  the strewn ghosts of ancient labors,  padding between the cushioned mosses, skirting where water seeps and trickles like tears.   Every day, we arrive at the stream. As tree shadows streak the slope, weaving into a tweed  brocaded with fallen limbs,  we fold ourse ..read more
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Oh my oh my…
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
1M ago
Who says a great Christmas gift can’t also be a tax write-off? For years, Dad wanted an ultrasonic pregnancy tester for the pigs and sheep.  Mom fought him on it.  “We don’t need to check for pregnancy when we can just see if they come back into heat!” Admittedly, that frugal perspective has kept this farm afloat since 1979. But just this once, we wanted to give Dad a little indulgence.  What better gift could there be for a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology?   So we bought him the pregnancy tester for Christmas.  And not the low-end variety, either.  We got him th ..read more
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Kitchen Serenade
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
1M ago
This is just a moment. It’s an ordinary ….and yet extraordinary moment. And I want to capture it here. I’m standing in the kitchen cooking dinner, listening to some jazz.  Bob hears a song he likes, and picks up his guitar to play along. I’m so taken with this.  With him.  It’s so easy to brush it off as the same ol’ same ol’, because many winter evenings unfold like this while I cook supper. But a year and a half ago, I didn’t know how many ordinary extraordinary evenings we had left. But he received his last treatment in January.  He’s on the other side if prostate cancer ..read more
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Fashion Forward Farmers
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
1M ago
We couldn’t send our fashion-loving daughters down to NYC for a month to study clothing design and construction without taking a few field trips into the depths of one of the fashion savviest metropolises in the world. New York doesn’t just do new fashion.  It does what Saoirse and Ula love best, which is second-hand, or vintage, like nobody’s business.  On our last visit with them, they had an entire day mapped out to look at what was happening on the vintage scene. And here, on the right, is my favorite piece. Please don’t ask me to tell you the price.  I was so gob ..read more
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Everyone Else’s Expectations
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
2M ago
It was the hardest lesson I had to learn as a writer. If people who never met me liked something I wrote, they somehow got it in their heads that I was….well…likable and admirable. But every person has different qualities that they find likable and admirable.  And I couldn’t possibly have all those qualities. So when I met ardent fans in person, I found that many folks talked to me as though they knew me….And there was an assumption that I somehow embodied those traits that they valued. Some folks thought I was super intelligent with a comprehensive knowledge of all things organ ..read more
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Worth It.
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
2M ago
Every year I forget. I think, when the cafe closes, life will slow down.  I’ll have time to work on my novel.  I’ll have time to work on the interview transcripts I have of Mom and Dad talking about how and why we’ve done things on the farm.  I’ll have time to rest.  I’ll have time to practice the bari.  I’ll have time to go cross country skiing.  I’ll have time to linger over cups of coffee down at the farm kitchen. And then January comes.  And it’s time to analyze the numbers, to dig in and figure out how things have been going, and to figure out what needs ..read more
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How the Sausage Gets Made
The Radical Homemaker
by Shannon
2M ago
No.  This is not pornography.  This is artificial insemination. Winter is a time of intimacies….and not just for humans.   This week we separated the rams from the ewes, their breeding cycle complete.  And we’ve been monitoring the pigs for when they come into heat so that we can artificially inseminate them. In January, my life is divided between crunching farm numbers and trying to spend as much time as possible out in the barn. I am looking for management problems – where are we losing money?  Where are we wasting?  Where are there safety hazards?  Nutrien ..read more
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