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A little bit of context: the 36 acres of our farm is dissected by two country roads, making three parts. We refer to them as: the North field - a big field that is contiguous with where our house and the (very simple) barns are; the Woods across from Hatchery road which is in front of our house; and Cross field across from Cross road. People sometimes stop on Cross road to look at the sheep if they are out there, or, to spot one of the many birds that live in the little woodsy area at the back. For example, a week or so ago, I chatted with a lady who had stopped to look at a particular tree. She also mentioned she knew Dave, who takes care of his 102 year-old dad, Lee Evers (now that's long-term parent care!.... Whoooo or should I say Waaaahh) and who is part of our food scrap pick up route. This kind of thing happens all the time in our little village, which is part of the charm of being here.
The greatest delight of travel is to see and learn things that you cannot at home. Yesterday was an instance of just such a pleasure in England, as our friend and host Karen, took me took me to visit her friends Phil and Heather Gorringe and their son Monty of Lower Blackmere farm in Herefordshire. The three of them spent two hours showing me around the farm, which was incredibly generous, given how busy they are. Thank you! I wish I had remembered to take an overall photo of my hosts and their beautiful farm; I did remember to take some "tech" photos though!
We grow the traditional Three Sisters, corn, bean, and squash, on a small plot. It’s lovely, and traditional, we get some awesome dried corn and beans from it. And it feeds my imagination.
The Three Sisters are part of a fertile and beautiful corner of my inner world - a place - or time? - in which people grow good food on family or community farms while regenerating the land, using simple tools, but also with so much intelligence and knowledge that it’s gentle work, and leaves time for other endeavors. Every year starts out with the Scrum Plan – a great project planning tool that helps you think through the Big Projects and all the steps to get them done. We just got our 2025 plan done this week, mid-January. The overall planning is collected in a spreadsheet (boring), but the fun part is writing all the specific tasks on sticky notes and hanging them up in a prominent place. Whenever you want to work on something, you mosey over to the stickie board and select a stickie with what you’re going to do next. When you’re done, the stickie moves over to the “Done” board, and by the end of the season, the stickie board is empty – or, nearly empty. All the tasks are done! More or less like that. See two earlier blogs about scrumming: 2017 scrumming; 2024 scrumming.
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Annababette WilsBabette is a permaculture farmer in Western Massachusetts. Archives
November 2025
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