Find your place at Spring Bird
Last Spring, we inoculated 100 logs with shiitake mushroom spawn! This Spring – like – in a few weeks- these logs will begin to fruit with fresh, log grown shiitake mushrooms! We will be selling both fresh shiitake mushrooms as well as the whole logs …
Did you know that there are evergreens that lose their needles – and I don’t mean your dried out, spent Christmas tree – but living deciduous conifers? I wasn’t aware of these trees until living at Spring Bird, where there are both larch trees and …
During these last weeks, life has manifested many, many bowls of cherries! Most days, you can find Pat and I harvesting from three cornelian cherry trees that seem to have exploded this year with their sweet-sour fruit. Cornelian cherries are popular in Turkey, Iran, Eastern …
The Land Conservancy’s “Women’s Learning Circle” gathered at Wanda Farm (Harvard, IL) this past Friday! Joe took us for a hayride to visit their pasture-raised pigs, cows, and chickens. Beyond learning about rotational grazing, Joe spoke passionately about caring for animals in ways that not …
Show your love for the prettiest Monarchs in all of the land with this waterproof vinyl sticker! Sticker measures 3″ x 2.41″ and costs $2.00
Oftentimes, the deer like to play with the rope of our tree swing. They nudge it with their noses. It’s real, prime time exciting stuff! The other day, one of them climbed through the loop and got momentarily stuck. For a split second I imagined …
This afternoon, I had the pleasure of weeding and harvesting the neglected, upper meadow asparagus patch. For those of you who have never toed around in an asparagus patch, let me paint you a word picture before you look below for a more visceral vision. …
I live in the woods and am surrounded by the most glorious old oak trees.They offer so much to the natural world, but they also nurture my spirit, giving me inspiration and protection. I painted this neon tree painting on my patio, during a course …
This excerpt from Dan Deacon’s song, “When I Was Done Dying”, captures my feelings about Spring which dawns today in the northern hemisphere. This season smells like a fresh new playground ball mixed with ice melt. It feels like sticky, squishy mud, and it looks …
This month, Patrick has been harvesting oak and maple logs for shiitake mushroom inoculation! For now, he is stacking them (about 100 logs) in the shade of these yew trees. At the end of the month, we will be drilling holes in them, stuffing the …
I sort of can’t believe that these snowdrops have surfaced. I mean, it’s the usual time that they bloom, but they usually sprout after several feet of snow have melted. At this point in the season, we have forgotten what the ground even looks like, …
Winter can feel interminable and impenetrable – especially during the grey days of February, and it’s poems like this one from Maria Carvalho that remind us that the grey is not permanent and indeed permeable. There is always sun behind that heavy bank of clouds! …
As some of you know, the final issue of my Woolgathering magazine featured poetry. This beautiful and timely poem was written by my dear friend, Mary Fontana, whom I met while volunteering at Annunciation House (a couple of decades ago-yikes!) Follow Mary on Instagram @maryfontanawrites …
