77 Comments

This made my day. There is nothing more powerful to counter the evil forces afoot than pure, unmitigated, sweet and stinky joy. Love and blessings from Vermont.

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Thats a tough placeforr tough people.I just picked the last of the tomatoes here and its November! I do kind of long for the truly organic/rural. Our hay comes in bales. Which means you need a tractor to move them (they are 230kg or more) and its not a ritual, just a job. I admire your aspiring babushka roccoco decor. Quite fetching!

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It is a shame that young women hate nature so much. If we could somehow figure out a way to chain them in the barns, imagine how good life would be! We’d be able to return to the countryside, have large families, not have to bow and scrape for the Grefs or the Gretas of the world.

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When I was younger, i would have slapped your face for that comment. But now, i actually believe you're a little bit more than half right.

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Young men (in the majority) are no better. Can't chain everybody in the barn.

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we just need a bigger barn!

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Too impractical. Waste management alone would be overwhelming. There aren't enough pitchforks or shovels in the world to take care of all that shyte...

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I had my hair styled with beer for my high school prom, so I can absolutely confirm it's a great hair styling product, and probably healthier than any store-bought stuff :)

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I heard that you had your hair styled with beer AT your high school prom.

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Your woodpile is amazingly beautiful, and puts my boring right-angled straight-sided woodpiles to shame.

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Plenty of positive, heart warming posts in this comment section. To keep balance in the universe it crossed my mind if there is anything to criticize, naturally in the ill-mannered and bad tempered way.

But I can't, the nature/history is just so beautiful.

I give this blog 4 stars, only because there is a serious lack of well proportioned milkmaids on display.

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This is fantastic! I used to be a commercial salmon fisherman, and ran my boat from Washington State up to Alaska every year where I operated it by myself for four months. I fished in several different fisheries up and down the West Coast, including harvesting Brine Shrimp on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. I left that career to become a white collar professional, which has been nearly a 25 year struggle. The thought to returning to a life of daily physical work to make things happen is appealing. Keep up the good work! I know very little of farm life, but being a former harvester I can appreciate the daily tasks, and the satisfaction that comes with that.

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It can only be a matter of weeks until you're writing death poetry.

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Glad to see you're settling into village life, Riley. Watch out, WEF-stooges! The World Potato-Grower's Forum is already spreading its delicious, tendrilly roots all over the globe; patiently, slowly, interminably silent in its takeover. ARC?! Pah!! Alliance for Reprobates and Criminals, more like! How many goats has "Dan Crenshaw" milked in his spare time?! He'd probably keep missing the udder.

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How do you think Dan lost his eye? The WEF wants you to believe it was a war thing... Anyone who has milked an herbivore knows true pathos.

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Ah yes - the priceless Shishkin masterpiece. He lived and worked to 1898 and appears to have stubbornly held out against the revolutionary inroads of impressionism long in the ascendant by 1900. Your cute baby bears in the forest wears its Kitsch affiliations on its sleeve! Clement Greenburg (perhaps already in the employment of the CIA) famously warned in the 1940s that Kitsch was an ever present danger among the Russian Realists. But this one I like much more:

https://www.wikiart.org/en/ivan-shishkin/valaam-kukko-1860

Anyway - best of luck to you as you and your associates turn back "the idiocy of rural life"! (Not that I would ever affirm such a sentiment - but someone very famous did.)

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Absolutely great. I loved it.

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Loving reading about your journey. I'm just starting mine. Static caravan bought for £1.8k and waiting for it to arrive. It has a log burner so I'm excited about that. I'm easily pleased. Currently clearing an acre or so of mammoth brambles. My hands are scarred for life! Ex-caged hens bought but seem to have gone on strike so living for free in my coop (ungrateful!) and I'm eyeing up several for the pot. Buying sheep for milk in the spring. Planting orchard too. Apparently goats are 'a$$holes' so I'm rethinking that option.

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You got me with this. So wonderful to read about something real and beautiful instead of war and horror. Is the village in Russia?

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Thanks for your support and readership, Peggy :) Yes, it's in Novgorod oblast, which is between Moscow and St. Petersburg

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To be more clear: I would kiss your manure-stained boots to be the old gramps of your quasi-familial household. I would even respect your saber-toothed kittytat. I can sing but I can't whistle. I am adept at helping younguns go through media withdrawal. (I use experimental techniques like story-telling and play.) And I am a seriously superb milker of goats

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you're welcome to visit Edward Manor anytime. the goats are waiting

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Now that I’m a paid subscriber I think I deserve to ask personal favors of you. I really need to know--did kombucha originate in Russia? Is that what they were drinking from the samovars back in the day? Do they still drink it? If so, do they drink it warm? (Eeeww!). This is crucial info for me, because I’ve become addicted to it and I’d like to know if it’s the Russians who have so mercilessly colonized my body or aliens?

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I am most happy to be at your service. As far as I know, Kombucha does not originate from Russia. They have it here, though (they call it "чайный гриб", or "tea mushroom"). I've been informed by friends that one of the more snobby supermarket chains in Moscow sells a mean Kombucha. Maybe I will conduct a taste test in your honor.

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Wood-pile is a piece of art.

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