There are so many wonderful blogs in OS!  I am spending way too much time reading and writing OS stuff, and (purposefully) neglecting my other work.  Thank you all for being so brilliant, and for sharing that with others.  

Now tell me, how do you do it?  How do you… Read full post »

So, enough with the depression.  I guess that's why in Buddhism there is "non-attachment"  and  awareness.  I have all kinds of quotes from the Dalai Lama that I put up around my house to remind me of what works.  It would be good to read them to myself more often.

When… Read full post »

The snow is still over a foot deep outside.  My walk to the barn today, through the first paddock, up the hill, through the gates and into the warm tack room was  again tiring because of fighting the deep snow.   Previous days' walks have created a sort of path,… Read full post »

It's late for me.  I've spent all day in a wrestling match with the excessive cold.  First, the truck, is diesel.  And I have never had a problem with it starting.  I still didn't have a problem with it starting, just running.  It stopped dead in the middle of my driveway… Read full post »

I can't believe it!  I got the banner thing up, and even with a title.  I stole the second line from partly from Graham Bell, author of The Permaculture Way.

Graham Bell is one of the people that will help move the world from over-consumption to  self-sufficiency if that is at all… Read full post »

 This weekend between blizzards I attended the Practical Farmers of Iowa Annual Convention and Workshop in Marshalltown, Iowa.  Practical Farmers of Iowa is a twenty-four year old organization of small, sustainable diverse family farmers and supporters.  They are amazing people of all… Read full post »

Words are more powerful than heavy machinery.   They can move mountains.   They form thoughts.  They drive countries to dispair, or to economic depression.  They give  us hope.  They brighten our day and take us into the dark of night.  They reflect our pain and our… Read full post »

We have snow, and not just the soft pillowy flakey stuff, but hard crunchy, icy great-to-sled-and-cross-country-ski-on snow.  The kind of snow that makes you glad you have spikes on your feet and snow tires on your car, or maybe even four wheel drive on your truck.  

Crunching up the… Read full post »

Mr. Obama,

Don't do it.  Don't listen to all of the same economists and advisors that Capitol Hill has been hearing over the last few months.  Listen to the PEOPLE if you want to figure out what will get us out of the dire economic straights we are now in.  

Our… Read full post »

It is almost too much to bear;  the dance of relationships.  The knowledge that someone expects something of me and they will be disappointed.  What is left in me is the reflection in the ice on the road.

 As the sun rose this morning behind woods, creating diamond sparkles on… Read full post »

I sit, looking out into a snow patched yard, a tangle of woods across the street, and think about impermanence.  Have I been holding on to...everything?  I grew up with Depression Era parents.  We didn't throw things away, we recycled them.  We recycled old cars like friends recyc… Read full post »