Best Investments in Sustainability by Laura Parker Roerden What’s better than something you do to help create a more sustainable earth and life? Something you simply stop doing; especially if it’s a chore in which you had previously invested time, money, and effort. It turns out that the late fall chore of removing your leavesContinue reading “Leave Your Leaves!”
Author Archives: Laura Parker Roerden
Make Your Own Yogurt
Best Investments in Sustainability by Laura Parker Roerden My family decided we would cut back on our plastic pollution recently and have been slowly replacing plastic items with real ones. The health risks are real–plastic is entering our waterways, the ocean and our food webs, concentrating dangerous chemicals in the food we eat. So weContinue reading “Make Your Own Yogurt”
Best Investments in Sustainability
Introducing the From the Shaker Column! Each Friday Salt from the Earth will feature a best investment in sustainability for your family, farm, or homestead. We believe that the best targets for sustainability in our lives should be: less expensive, earth and health friendly, soul-satisfying, easy to do! Inspired by theContinue reading “Best Investments in Sustainability”
This Old (Farm)House
by Laura Parker Roerden This morning, I awoke to a simple pale orb moving in a confused pattern in the window of my bedroom in the farmhouse. Bits of morning were reflected in flashes off wings like patches of hope in a stretch of darkness. I must have rubbed my eyes too hard in aContinue reading “This Old (Farm)House”
A Marine Conservation Compass
by Laura Parker Roerden This summer’s cinema blockbuster Finding Dory has rightly set off alarms in the marine conservation community against an anticipated spike in blue tang sales for private aquaria, which would decimate wild coral reef populations. But there is a deeper conservation message, simmering just below the film’s surface (if you will pardon the badContinue reading “A Marine Conservation Compass”
Eggs, Eggs, Eggs-stravagant Equinox Eggs
by Laura Parker Roerden Each spring we increase our flock with new heritage breed chicks. This year we added all-heritage breed Buff Orpingtons and Araucanas. Buff Orpingtons, as their name implies, are buff-colored hens that lay tan eggs. Araucanas come in a array of colors, my favorite is almost cerulean; they lay different shades of blueContinue reading “Eggs, Eggs, Eggs-stravagant Equinox Eggs”
The Five Very Best Tips for Preserving Tomatoes
by Laura Parker Roerden My first experiments with preserving tomatoes involved burnt fingers, cuts, and a bloody looking mess of tomato waste everywhere that reminded me of that classic Julia Child SNL skit. Fortunately, canning does not have to be a horror show. Over time and with the help of my fellow canner and friendContinue reading “The Five Very Best Tips for Preserving Tomatoes”
The Birches
For Lara and all the Garden Moms by Laura Parker Roerden (August 28, 2015) This summer was a long march of loss. Three parents of the kids we grew up with in the neighborhood of the farm died, one after another, as if the branch they were hanging from no longer could sustain them. Each was in theirContinue reading “The Birches”
In Praise of the Roo
8 Reasons Roosters Rule by Laura Parker Roerden Should you have a rooster in your small flock or backyard farm? The question comes up a lot. Roosters are noisy, are not necessary for hens to produce eggs, and many ordinances in residential neighborhoods forbid them. So unless you’re wanting to hatch your own eggs, which obviously requires themContinue reading “In Praise of the Roo”
Do You Know Where You Are?
(And other thoughts on eating locally wherever you are) by Laura Parker Roerden What does it mean to be here? I mean right where you are at this very moment. I can distinctly remember the first time I actually understood what being present to where I was meant deep in my bones. Like a lot of my epiphanies,Continue reading “Do You Know Where You Are?”