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We have a little land in eastern Ontario, and a little of that land with a lot of manure seems willing to grow food for people. Those who come to our school are fed by her. The land is a glacial flood plain, sand and stone, one of those countless thousands of...

A few weeks ago I had a wretched autumn flu, meaning that kids have gone to school, swapped pathogens like playing cards and brought them home for all to enjoy. The fact that you've no school age kids at home doesn't save you. It didn't save me. Some well meaning neighbours...

If you've lived through a February in the northern part of the world, you've learned some valuable things. Thin layers beat one thick coat, for instance. Felted wool beats woven wool - that may not be science, but it seems true to me. And the shortest days of the year, the ones where...

Dying people die sometime before spring, if they can. Fierce and implacable, and demanding: spring has that face. The green surge, the endless evening light, the stupor of a curled, private sleep now broken by something strong in the air: all of this makes a claim on the living. It says: If you are...

Because of a wet, cold spring, because everything went out too early, we didn't have bounty this year. But - and I don't really know why - we did have corn. And here is the marvel: our Blue Hopi corn, child of the desert, grew the best of all. Corn, the faithful teacher, starts its...

Like most of you, I grew up in a time and place that prized competence, progress, success, leisure time and anything that seemed full of light. During my lifetime older people have been forced by law to retire, young people unsure of themselves have been driven to mayhem or worse by intimidation and bullying...

All the ragged spirals of our time on the road these last few years persuade us that maybe, maybe, there is something like a change in the air. At our teaching events there are now more plain folks than there are professional folks, and that is the beginning of how the care of...