Carrying a pregnancy and giving birth is incredible, a personally rare experience that intimately connects you to the mysterious cycle of life. If you can and want to, I say give it a try. But it's not what makes a family. Everything afterward is.
But why foster-to-adopt?
Read MoreOkay so most of us have few actual frontiers to face anymore. The West has been won—and is now the No. 1 worldwide manufacturer of superhero franchise movies. Elon Musk is handling the space stuff for us.
Now, our arena is Facebook. Social media could be the new agora, the place where minds can meet to discuss and solve world problems. At the moment, it's mostly cat videos. With a heavy dose of outrage. Instead of being deep people, as John Pavlovitz recently wrote, we're combustible people.
I'd like to make the case for resilience over outrage. Read on to find out how...
Read MoreI enjoy traveling, but I don't love vacation posts. So I decided to use the "Travel, in brief" style to share the places I've been and give you a flavor of them without humble bragging about my awesome vacay. Sound good?
The latest edition...Pilot Mountain, NC!
Read MoreA little over a week ago, I turned 33. Half my lifetime ago I would've been about 17, and the thought of 33 would've had me breathing into a paper bag. Kind of how I feel about 50 now. One sec... Okay, now that the panic has slightly subsided, back to the post...
There’s something about the 30s that takes life to a new level. Your 20s are when you’re trying to be a grown up and mostly feel like an imposter about it. But in your 30s, you’re old enough to know more about who you are, and then realize you’re kind of sick of yourself. If you feel this way, congratulations! You’re probably not delusional!
So it's a turning point kind of age. From here you can either embrace day drinking and the huge car payment for the ridiculous convertible, or you can revel in your newfound freedom of thought and spirit. I'm going with the latter.
Here are some of my personal realizations and responses:
Read MoreI've been basking in the pool a lot this summer, reading tons, and collecting two months' worth of recommended reading! Buckle up...there are some doozies!
Fiction: The Lost Prince, The Human Stain, American Pastoral, All the Light We Cannot See
Nonfiction: Every Little Thing, The Man Who Couldn't Stop
Read MoreFriends, Liberals, Conservatives, lend me your ears.
I'm about to make a non-partisan plea for everyone to Calm the 4$&# Down, take a pause on political email forwards and Facebook shares, and find some footing in reality.
That's what I've been doing for the past few weeks, and I'd like to share my findings with you
Read MoreI enjoy traveling, but I don't love vacation posts. So I decided to use the "Travel, in brief" style to share the places I've been and give you a flavor of them without humble bragging about my awesome vacay. Sound good?
The latest edition...Asheville, NC!
Read MoreThe past couple weeks have felt overwhelming. I'm changing my perspective by changing the questions I'm asking.
At the end of last week, we discovered our rabbits Chestnut and Walnut had become parents. We were out doing some farm management (aka mowing and edging the grass) when Bonnie the dog started acting weird(er than normal). Noah went to see what she was bouncing around about and found a tiny baby rabbit in the grass.
Guys, the whole family went bananas with glee.
Read MoreI "met" Gina Detweiler through our mutual friend Marian Vischer, who was like, "Hey you guys are both weirdo gardeners! Discuss." (Paraphrased.) This week Gina agreed to share the story of their Fun-Size Farm, which she calls Half Pint Farm. (Love the name—Laura Ingalls Wilder what what!)
Gina's story proves that a little bit of vision and a dash of hope can make a backyard into a garden, turn Nothing into Something...
Read MoreOften, a way to get past fear and biases is to find a common interest. At Etheridge Farms, that common interest is the compost heap.
Somewhere deep in the annals of my education, all the way back in the Fourth Grade file cabinet, is a folder labelled C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-O-N.
Anyway, my inner conservationist cringes at faucets left running during tooth-brushing and throwing away perfectly good recyclables. So when I became an adult with my own home, I couldn't look down at a pile of rinds and weird bruised bits of fruits and vegetables and just throw them out in good conscience. Way to go, L.A. County Schools!
Read MoreAs I mentioned last week, I bought a cheap but functional pool for our yard. We fenced off the side yard, and suddenly we had an oasis. A pool! Afternoon shade! I put my lounger out there! And, best of all, now the animals can't leave land mines in there.
Read MoreHey dudes. So, kind of a big, sucky week: deadliest mass shooting in American history, toddler drowned by alligator at DisneyWorld, British parliament member murdered, one of our hens mysteriously died, Ethan and Oliver had to have unnecessary TB tests for our foster application, Ethan also had to get a finger stick and a polio booster while having a vasovagal episode and basically fainting from not breathing, etc. Not the greatest intro to the summer, amiright? Particularly rough one if you're in Orlando.
And it makes me pretty weary of thinking big thoughts.
Sometimes the solution to thinking big is to live small
Read MorePeople exist who tear out their entire lawns and start growing food in it. Some to great effect, like the folks over at Tenth Acre Farm. Or any of the hippies who live in midcentury neighborhoods where they call the houses "bungalows." (I ain't hatin. I love me some bungalows.)
Read More(Because it's about time they started pulling their weight, amiright? I know this will be controversial, but at Etheridge Farms we do not consider starring in YouTube videos and wearing funny seasonal bandannas acceptable animal contributions. Our animals have to help out before they get screen time.)
Read MoreI know what you're thinking. Herbs are kind of anticlimactic. If you're going to put the effort in, why not go for the gusto and try heirloom tomatoes from seed and ghost peppers? The reasons I say start with herbs are threefold...
Read MoreAs you can see, we have a bigger backyard than maybe is average. But we certainly don't have what most people would consider farming conditions.
But that's the beauty of Fun-Size Farming: it's any size you have or want. It's about getting in touch with the seasons, your region, and the plants and animals and insects that interest you. So stay tuned for the next Fun-Size Farming post to see how you can pursue your dream of getting back to the land—even if you have no land!
Read MoreIf you garden even a little bit, you'll soon have to face the annoying fact that Nature will do as she pleases, even in the approximate 48 hours you have every spring to get the vegetables and fruits up and running.
Read MoreLong ago, when I was a little girl in Los Angeles, I loved an ancient magnolia in the front yard, a tall red hibiscus in the back, and the scattered palm trees in our concrete jungle. These glimpses of green led me to imagine wide open spaces and write stories about pioneer families who built sprawling farmhouses on the prairie and never died of dysentery.
How to achieve your ludicrous dream of getting back to the land, even if you have no land
So fifteenish years later, when Noah and I signed the papers on our small house in the rolling foothills of North Carolina, that spark reignited. I planted a garden. We built terraced garden beds by stacking landscape timbers on the sunniest hillside and back-filling the clay soil with hauled-in compost.
It was a gateway garden.
Read MoreWe bought our first home eight years ago. Our starter home. It was about 1,200 square feet—three bedrooms, two bathrooms. A palace compared to our previous two apartments. Buying that house was the next point on our classic American upward trajectory, from dorm room, to one-bedroom apartment, two-bedroom apartment, and then small house.
Our plan was to bring our new baby home to our adorably humble house, then outgrow the place and move on in three or four years. It would be our family’s greenhouse, nurturing us until we were ready to be planted somewhere grander.
We’re still here.
Read MoreIt’s overcast and drizzling today. It’s a perfect August rainy day. I have the window blinds pulled up to let in the most light—that soft, perfect light diffused through thick clouds. The grass is so green. There’s a single day lily gathering rain in its upturned blossom. The willow tree down the street is waving is long branches, which have been given a rather unfortunate severe haircut.
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