"A New Food Standard With Old Fashioned Roots"

As we get ready for baby, I find myself thinking a lot about food. Not elaborate meals or trying new recipes, but simple, nourishing food that will be easy to reach for when days blur together and rest needs to come first. This season has reminded me how comforting it is to know a meal is already waiting. Something tucked away in the freezer. Something lined up on a pantry shelf. Food that was prepared with care ahead of time, when there was a little more energy to give. Free

Preparing for this baby has slowed me down in ways I didn’t expect. Even as the days stay full and the farm keeps moving, there is a quiet awareness underneath it all. Something holy is coming. I feel it in the way I move through the house, in the way I notice small things, in the way my body asks to be listened to a little more closely. Choosing a home birth has shaped how I am preparing. It has me looking at our home differently, not as a place that needs to be perfect, but

The beginning of a new year carries a quiet invitation. Not to rush into goals or resolutions, but to pause long enough to imagine what could be. Vision casting is not about predicting the future or controlling outcomes. It is about allowing yourself the space to dream and to listen. Recently on the farm, we hosted a ladies night centered around this very idea. We gathered around tables covered with magazines, old books, scissors, and glue. We cut out words, images, colors, a

January in Alfred has a way of quieting things down. The fields rest under snow, the pace slows, and the days invite us inward. It is easy to assume that eating local is something reserved for summer and fall, when gardens are full and markets overflow. But winter offers its own kind of abundance, if we learn how to see it. Eating local in January is less about variety and more about rhythm. It is about learning to cook with what stores well, what was preserved with care, and