Homestead Voices

When I was a child, I used to sneak into the pantry to enjoy an illicit snack: peanut butter, straight from the jar, usually scooped with a spoon but just as often dug out with my sticky kid fingers. I wish I could say that I left…
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Photo by Sarah Walker Caron Starting a cookbook club in 2019 turned out to be the creative food-related outlet I didn’t know that I needed. And it all started with something I read online. In 2015, a food writer named Tara…
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Ever try typing with a tiny dog resting on your arm? It's an acquired skill|Photo by Julia Bayly I’d like to say I’m the kind of person who stands firm in the face of demands from critters looking for extra food or attention. But it…
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A month or so ago, when brainstorming ideas for my column, my editor approached me with a challenge: spend $10 at the local Goodwill and wow her by upcycling thrift store finds into new treasures. I am a regular denizen of the thrift…
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Let’s talk about waste. Specifically, let’s talk about how to waste less in 2020. Image by congerdesign from Pixabay According to the United States Department of Agriculture, an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the food supply…
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Hello Homestead’s staff writers started 2019 with optimistic homesteading resolutions enthusiastically hoping to achieve their goals. Did they? Image by congerdesign from Pixabay Sarah Walker Caron editor of Hello Homestead…
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When you get a tractor this stuck, the only thing to do is call a farmer with a larger piece of machinery.|Photo by Julia Bayly Forget knights in shining armor. When it comes to helping me get out of whatever jam I have gotten myself…
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Over my four years of high school theater, I accumulated over a dozen show shirts, each screen-printed with a student-drawn show poster and the performance dates. Even though they each cost $10 and rendered the wearer as a living…
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The Rusty Metal chickens look over the blue tinged bald spot on elder chicken Shoppie.| Photo by Julia Bayly It’s looking like a blue Christmas here on Rusty Metal Farm. Not blue as in sad or melancholy, though. Blue in color. And in…
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As a writer for the “Homestead” section of the Bangor Daily News, I am almost ashamed to admit that I did not take to the “Little House” series as a kid. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s problematic literary treatment of Native Americans aside, I…
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I gave him all the tools he needed to cook. My son, Will, started his life in the kitchen with me as I developed a career as a food writer. At first, he watched from his swing. But as he grew, he was often standing on a chair watching…
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Distances seem to grow the colder it gets and the deeper the snow, making even the simplest chore like taking out the compost scraps more difficult on Rusty Metal Farm.|Photo by Julia Bayly In his short story “One For The Road,” Maine…
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