I couldn’t respect an individual whom I have never met more than I respect you.
I too am facing loosing my livelihood, as I choose bodily autonomy over compliance. The system I (like many others) have poured my heart and soul into as a Palliative Care practitioner demands more…my fucking well-being. It’s almost too much to bare. 🖤
Oh, Lisa, my heart just aches for you. I don't understand why we are here, but then I sometimes think "why not"? We're not so special and look at all of the atrocities history has played out. It doesn't make anything easier. I wish I could fix it all. You are not alone, I truly hope you at least know that.
I’m sitting here in an empty room, reading your words aloud so that I don’t skim over anything. I’m sure your book may have gone on the back burner for the moment, but I hope it will still happen someday. I would buy a copy for myself and one to give each of my children in a few years, because this world they’re growing up in wants to rip out everything of meaning and value and fill in the cavity left behind with fear and dependency. We’re fighting it for all we’re worth. Your words help.
"Safety is a malicious muthafukah that peddles lies at the cost of your fully realised, vibrant life." Your wordsmithing forges tested metal that with repeated use helps me face life. Thank you ❤
We are a young farming family, and I often wonder whether we are stupid for continuing to chase this sheep dream with ever increasing feed costs, and an ever skinner profit margins. This job pays in dividends, just not always cash. Your words always help me to see things from a fresh perspective.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that I’ve thought about you most days during these past few months, wondering how you are. Hearing the news of your daughter gutted me, and in my minds eye, I held your heart close to mine as I cared for my two young daughters that day.
Thank you, Acacia. It warms my heart to think of you thinking of me with your little girls in tow. There is always things to consider and I think farming is more honing than it is anything else. What works on one farm doesn't necessarily work on another. I am so glad something I share helps you in anyway.
I think of you so often, and have over the past year. Your ideas help me so much. Ive got my little micro farm of 4 acres. We harvested our first rabbits this year, and put 25 chickens in the freezer! I can be sad to loose my animal and grateful for nourishment. You have helped me grirve and appreciate. I am so very sorry for your loss, and I am grieving for you. I absolutely love the posts you wrote about your strong, sweet daughter. Thank you for always being real, and gentle. 💜
Thank you, Abbey. Your words fill my heart with joy. I am so happy you have landed in a place where you are an active participant in nourishing yourself on all levels.
Sometimes we don’t know how much we miss the writings and words of someone until we experience them again. Thank you for the gift of your views and the accompanying eloquently expressed prose.
Hi Tara, have you considered duckweed for the ducks? It’s a quickly multiplying aquatic plant that is high in protein. Granted you would have to grow it in an indoor body of water for winter but it is a great option! Beautiful blog as always ♥️
Tara, I’m so saddened to hear of your loss. My deepest condolences to you and your family. My sister and I have followed along your posts and website for quite a while. We remember posts about you and daughter and remember those with joy. Although I don’t know you personally and have never met you, I feel like when I read what you write, it sits with me and reaches tiny places I didn’t know how to fill. The good and the bad bits. Sending love from Australia
Kari, thank you for such a beautiful compliment about my writing. And thank you, too,for your expression of compassion over the death of our daughter. It was my deepest honour to share bits of the wondrous human and I am so grateful that so many of you hold memories of her because of that. ❤️
I've been thinking about you all day, as a pot of bone broth simmers away on the stove. Thinking about you all week, thinking about you all year! Yearning for some wisdom, sanity, sage advice. I know that is a lot of pressure to put on one person. I am college educated, loved school, have taken many classes, completed apprenticeships, & yet I feel like you are my true teacher & we have never even met. I just want to thank you for sharing bits of your life, your hard-earned wisdom, your farm & your love with complete strangers on the internet.
I remember when you wrote that your daughter decided she wanted to be a midwife - as do I -and I couldn't help but feel a kinship with her. I remember your stories of (temporarily) locking her in the coop, her labeling bones for Louis, the ferocity with which she played hockey with the boyz. Eating ancestral diets at practice. We are all thinking of you + sending love <3
Christina, thank you! Thank you for remembering that about her. For sharing that with me. I am so moved to read your words. Will you become a midwife? What a beautiful profession. ❤️❤️
I've been wondering what your perspective and response to the ongoing situation has been and I'm glad you're not one of those who are planning to run. At least you don't give this impression if it has crossed your mind. It is often a topic of conversation among certain friends.
I am more of a mind to plant deeper roots and stand my ground, but I can't lie and say I don't worry what the future might be for our children(collectively, I am still childless). I do know it will be worse if we don't stay and set a different tone. My husband's family came here from Russia via Isreal. They upended their lives to offer their children a chance of a future not steeped in corruption. I don't know that such a place exists. My mother in law can't accept any possibility that things could get as bad here as they were there, I can't say I blame her after all the sacrifices her and her husband made, including giving up a medical career.
At the onset of lockdowns my husband was saying that it would never last, things would go back to normal normal sooner than later... he was convinced that the sporting world would not stand for lockdowns and the money invested in it would save us somehow?🤷♀️😅
I was much more skeptical, I was stunned at the precedents being set and saw that the politicians would never be able to back down and lose face. Now that he's finally accepted that things will never be normal normal again he's actively wishing for full on societal collapse🤦♀️ It's all I can do to keep my head on straight after all this whiplash.
All that aside, we are moving forward with putting together a homestead.
Looking to get started with some food systems on our land next year, come hell or high water. I'm probably going to have to camp out for a while until we can move into the house. Would love to know if you have suggestions for sourcing livestock and feed. Most of my searches show up West of Lake Simcoe but surely there are options to the east...? Not sure if practical details are something you feel like engaging in but I'm here for it if/when you are, even if that includes some kind of compensation. I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in paying for your time and expertise. Just sayin'💝
I don't know about the "run" part. Who knows. I mean, could things get so out of hand that we have to leave? That would be pretty extreme, but we have always been the type of people that keep one eye on the goings-on while keeping our bodies and hearts and minds firmly on the goodness of the things we can create and love and control.
That said, I will never get so tied to place that I allow myself, my children, or my family, to be abused. But that's a pretty high threshold. Never know, we may end up in the bush of northern Canada in our one room hobbit house in the side of a hill.
The best thing to do is consult with farmers and neighbours around where you're moving. Find out where the farm stores are, who is selling or growing grain or hay, who is raising livestock that you're interested in. It's all about building community and networks, now more than ever.
My condolences to you and your family. I have gone back through your IG account and read all your stories about your daughter. She will be remembered here. Your words in this post are a powerful sermon to me and reminder of what we have and where we are going. One of my tasks this week is culling some of the heifers on our farm.
Thank you, Laura. I took most of my personal, family posts down for IG before I left earlier this year. I might share them on here in time. I hope the cull went well.
“They trade the very essence of life for an illusion of safety and the impossible promise of the return to a time that is gone. Forever.”
Every human has a choice. We are the only species alive, who has that ability. Yet most abdicate their choice for a piecemeal life. It’s not real comfort. But it’s been sold as comfort to the masses for 60+ years. That’s an entire lifetime for some people. Living in fear. Fear of where their food comes from, where their money comes from, fear of bill collectors, fear of getting sick, fear of a life not truly lived.
It's so true, Robyn. We are a species divided and conquered. We are living through the death of a narrative and from that.. well, I think some hard rebuilding, but that's not so different than any other time in the history of the world.
Sometimes there's disbelief that we are here for this. It's nothing we've been prepared for, so cushioned and buffered are we. But here we are, none the less. People, whether it be on a micro or macro level, never change unless some grand-daddy illness or destruction takes place and forces their hands. You can see, now, those hobbled by fear and those taking a big gulp of air and with resolve standing up to face what comes.
Tara, how kind you are to share your poignant words on the heels of such a great loss! I am so very sorry to learn of your daughter; I always felt like I knew her from your posts- what a wonderful memorial! Thank you for sharing and for beautifully expressing the tragedy of the popular perspective. We are all a little richer with your insight.
I have thought of you and your family everyday since your last post. I am deeply sorry for your loss. Like so many others, I feel your words have enriched my life and I grieve with you. Although we have never met, you have felt like a friend that gives sound advice and clear sobering perspectives when I need it most. Through your stories over the years I imagined your daughter, a vibrant and strong woman much like yourself. I imagine how she knew how special her family is and it gave her confidence and wisdom beyond her years.
I can’t imagine the sorrow. I have held my children closer and appreciated life in these circumstances even more this week.
We have recently purchased a homestead, I am working everyday to develop our animal and food systems. As always your words are right on point.
Thank you, Jasmine. It's wonderful to read your words and I am grateful for them. I am so happy for you that you are beginning this journey of homesteading. What a wonderful, exhausting, beautiful, frustrating world you are entering. I wish you the very best in all of it.
I couldn’t respect an individual whom I have never met more than I respect you.
I too am facing loosing my livelihood, as I choose bodily autonomy over compliance. The system I (like many others) have poured my heart and soul into as a Palliative Care practitioner demands more…my fucking well-being. It’s almost too much to bare. 🖤
Oh, Lisa, my heart just aches for you. I don't understand why we are here, but then I sometimes think "why not"? We're not so special and look at all of the atrocities history has played out. It doesn't make anything easier. I wish I could fix it all. You are not alone, I truly hope you at least know that.
I’m sitting here in an empty room, reading your words aloud so that I don’t skim over anything. I’m sure your book may have gone on the back burner for the moment, but I hope it will still happen someday. I would buy a copy for myself and one to give each of my children in a few years, because this world they’re growing up in wants to rip out everything of meaning and value and fill in the cavity left behind with fear and dependency. We’re fighting it for all we’re worth. Your words help.
Thank you, Kerry. Your children are blessed to have landed in the arms of your family. Teach them by example and lead them with love. ❤️
"Safety is a malicious muthafukah that peddles lies at the cost of your fully realised, vibrant life." Your wordsmithing forges tested metal that with repeated use helps me face life. Thank you ❤
I love that, Yvette ❤️❤️
Thank you as always, for sharing your world.
We are a young farming family, and I often wonder whether we are stupid for continuing to chase this sheep dream with ever increasing feed costs, and an ever skinner profit margins. This job pays in dividends, just not always cash. Your words always help me to see things from a fresh perspective.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that I’ve thought about you most days during these past few months, wondering how you are. Hearing the news of your daughter gutted me, and in my minds eye, I held your heart close to mine as I cared for my two young daughters that day.
Sending love and healing
Thank you, Acacia. It warms my heart to think of you thinking of me with your little girls in tow. There is always things to consider and I think farming is more honing than it is anything else. What works on one farm doesn't necessarily work on another. I am so glad something I share helps you in anyway.
came across this poem today & thought of you. and cried. at work. holding you close:
Epitaph - By Merrit Malloy
When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.
And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give them
What you need to give to me.
I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.
Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live on in your eyes
And not your mind.
You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.
Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away.
Thank you, Anjum. It's beautiful and so is your heart. ❤️
I think of you so often, and have over the past year. Your ideas help me so much. Ive got my little micro farm of 4 acres. We harvested our first rabbits this year, and put 25 chickens in the freezer! I can be sad to loose my animal and grateful for nourishment. You have helped me grirve and appreciate. I am so very sorry for your loss, and I am grieving for you. I absolutely love the posts you wrote about your strong, sweet daughter. Thank you for always being real, and gentle. 💜
Thank you, Abbey. Your words fill my heart with joy. I am so happy you have landed in a place where you are an active participant in nourishing yourself on all levels.
Sometimes we don’t know how much we miss the writings and words of someone until we experience them again. Thank you for the gift of your views and the accompanying eloquently expressed prose.
Thank you, Val ❤️
Hi Tara, have you considered duckweed for the ducks? It’s a quickly multiplying aquatic plant that is high in protein. Granted you would have to grow it in an indoor body of water for winter but it is a great option! Beautiful blog as always ♥️
I would have to dig an indoor, in-ground pool for that one 😉 Thank you for your kind words, Lauren.
Tara, I’m so saddened to hear of your loss. My deepest condolences to you and your family. My sister and I have followed along your posts and website for quite a while. We remember posts about you and daughter and remember those with joy. Although I don’t know you personally and have never met you, I feel like when I read what you write, it sits with me and reaches tiny places I didn’t know how to fill. The good and the bad bits. Sending love from Australia
Kari, thank you for such a beautiful compliment about my writing. And thank you, too,for your expression of compassion over the death of our daughter. It was my deepest honour to share bits of the wondrous human and I am so grateful that so many of you hold memories of her because of that. ❤️
I've been thinking about you all day, as a pot of bone broth simmers away on the stove. Thinking about you all week, thinking about you all year! Yearning for some wisdom, sanity, sage advice. I know that is a lot of pressure to put on one person. I am college educated, loved school, have taken many classes, completed apprenticeships, & yet I feel like you are my true teacher & we have never even met. I just want to thank you for sharing bits of your life, your hard-earned wisdom, your farm & your love with complete strangers on the internet.
I remember when you wrote that your daughter decided she wanted to be a midwife - as do I -and I couldn't help but feel a kinship with her. I remember your stories of (temporarily) locking her in the coop, her labeling bones for Louis, the ferocity with which she played hockey with the boyz. Eating ancestral diets at practice. We are all thinking of you + sending love <3
Christina, thank you! Thank you for remembering that about her. For sharing that with me. I am so moved to read your words. Will you become a midwife? What a beautiful profession. ❤️❤️
I've been wondering what your perspective and response to the ongoing situation has been and I'm glad you're not one of those who are planning to run. At least you don't give this impression if it has crossed your mind. It is often a topic of conversation among certain friends.
I am more of a mind to plant deeper roots and stand my ground, but I can't lie and say I don't worry what the future might be for our children(collectively, I am still childless). I do know it will be worse if we don't stay and set a different tone. My husband's family came here from Russia via Isreal. They upended their lives to offer their children a chance of a future not steeped in corruption. I don't know that such a place exists. My mother in law can't accept any possibility that things could get as bad here as they were there, I can't say I blame her after all the sacrifices her and her husband made, including giving up a medical career.
At the onset of lockdowns my husband was saying that it would never last, things would go back to normal normal sooner than later... he was convinced that the sporting world would not stand for lockdowns and the money invested in it would save us somehow?🤷♀️😅
I was much more skeptical, I was stunned at the precedents being set and saw that the politicians would never be able to back down and lose face. Now that he's finally accepted that things will never be normal normal again he's actively wishing for full on societal collapse🤦♀️ It's all I can do to keep my head on straight after all this whiplash.
All that aside, we are moving forward with putting together a homestead.
Looking to get started with some food systems on our land next year, come hell or high water. I'm probably going to have to camp out for a while until we can move into the house. Would love to know if you have suggestions for sourcing livestock and feed. Most of my searches show up West of Lake Simcoe but surely there are options to the east...? Not sure if practical details are something you feel like engaging in but I'm here for it if/when you are, even if that includes some kind of compensation. I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in paying for your time and expertise. Just sayin'💝
I don't know about the "run" part. Who knows. I mean, could things get so out of hand that we have to leave? That would be pretty extreme, but we have always been the type of people that keep one eye on the goings-on while keeping our bodies and hearts and minds firmly on the goodness of the things we can create and love and control.
That said, I will never get so tied to place that I allow myself, my children, or my family, to be abused. But that's a pretty high threshold. Never know, we may end up in the bush of northern Canada in our one room hobbit house in the side of a hill.
The best thing to do is consult with farmers and neighbours around where you're moving. Find out where the farm stores are, who is selling or growing grain or hay, who is raising livestock that you're interested in. It's all about building community and networks, now more than ever.
My condolences to you and your family. I have gone back through your IG account and read all your stories about your daughter. She will be remembered here. Your words in this post are a powerful sermon to me and reminder of what we have and where we are going. One of my tasks this week is culling some of the heifers on our farm.
Thank you, Laura. I took most of my personal, family posts down for IG before I left earlier this year. I might share them on here in time. I hope the cull went well.
Nothing has really changed, we’ve just opened our eyes to see it and that changes everything. Beautiful words. So much to consider.
Thank you, Patty.
“They trade the very essence of life for an illusion of safety and the impossible promise of the return to a time that is gone. Forever.”
Every human has a choice. We are the only species alive, who has that ability. Yet most abdicate their choice for a piecemeal life. It’s not real comfort. But it’s been sold as comfort to the masses for 60+ years. That’s an entire lifetime for some people. Living in fear. Fear of where their food comes from, where their money comes from, fear of bill collectors, fear of getting sick, fear of a life not truly lived.
Tara you are the balm. Not us. ❤️
It's so true, Robyn. We are a species divided and conquered. We are living through the death of a narrative and from that.. well, I think some hard rebuilding, but that's not so different than any other time in the history of the world.
Sometimes there's disbelief that we are here for this. It's nothing we've been prepared for, so cushioned and buffered are we. But here we are, none the less. People, whether it be on a micro or macro level, never change unless some grand-daddy illness or destruction takes place and forces their hands. You can see, now, those hobbled by fear and those taking a big gulp of air and with resolve standing up to face what comes.
Nobody is comfortable anymore.
Tara, how kind you are to share your poignant words on the heels of such a great loss! I am so very sorry to learn of your daughter; I always felt like I knew her from your posts- what a wonderful memorial! Thank you for sharing and for beautifully expressing the tragedy of the popular perspective. We are all a little richer with your insight.
Thank you so much, Sally.
Dear Tara,
I have thought of you and your family everyday since your last post. I am deeply sorry for your loss. Like so many others, I feel your words have enriched my life and I grieve with you. Although we have never met, you have felt like a friend that gives sound advice and clear sobering perspectives when I need it most. Through your stories over the years I imagined your daughter, a vibrant and strong woman much like yourself. I imagine how she knew how special her family is and it gave her confidence and wisdom beyond her years.
I can’t imagine the sorrow. I have held my children closer and appreciated life in these circumstances even more this week.
We have recently purchased a homestead, I am working everyday to develop our animal and food systems. As always your words are right on point.
Thank you
Thank you, Jasmine. It's wonderful to read your words and I am grateful for them. I am so happy for you that you are beginning this journey of homesteading. What a wonderful, exhausting, beautiful, frustrating world you are entering. I wish you the very best in all of it.