Hi, Friend!

I’m on the trip of a lifetime to Alaska with my family.  Five kids.  Ten days.  Infinite excitement.  While we’re away having grand, bloggable adventures, I’m sharing some special posts by guest writers.

Today’s guest writer is my friend, Sarah.  Among other talents that include things like graduate school and working in higher education, Sarah and her husband, Bubba (for reals), raise pigs.  Specifically, right now, as I type this, they’re raising my family’s pig.  The one we will certainly savor for many a dinner and not a few breakfasts.

Sarah grows me bacon.  And she buys me massive amounts of local butter.  And she once gave me a shot of whiskey.  Yep; that’s what we call a triple threat in the local food biz — bacon, butter, whiskey.

I might have a few inappropriate feelings for Sarah.

(I love you, Sarah.  Call me.)

Beth

……….

Honey, The Neighbors Hate Us
by Sarah King of The Collective

Two years ago, my husband and I had a tree removed from our yard that had partially grown into the fence and therefore required a section of our fence to be removed.

Today, my friends, the neighbor started putting back the fence section that’s been missing for two years.

We’ve finally pissed them off enough that they can’t stand the sight of our yard anymore and are rebuilding the fence.

Victory!

But seriously, can we blame them? I mean, we have 4 chickens and 4 ducks, 1 dog, and they don’t even know we have one more pup on the way next month. Not to mention the fact that a food distribution truck makes deliveries of large quantities of flour and butter to our home every quarter and then a bunch of mysterious cars pull up and drive away giggling about how much butter and flour they managed to order.

So what the hell are we doing?

Well, some call it being crazy, but we like to call it “community development and sustainability.”  They’re buzz words that are kind of like the word “consultant”- they cover a multitude of sins.

See – we want to be farmers. Not because it’s trendy and certainly not because it means that we can legitimately wear skinny jeans and flannel. (Skinny jeans don’t make Bubba’s butt look as bootylious as we might hope.)

We want to be farmers because we believe in being salt-of-the-earth people who work hard for the things we have and are confident in our abilities to provide for ourselves and our families. Not only do we want to do this for us…we want to do it with our community.

We believe that communities should be able to provide growth, nourishment and sustainability from within. We also believe that people should share resources that include goods and services and education. When we work together within our communities, we find our special skills and qualities that allow us to serve and support one another in ways we may have never known, or simply sought from other places.

So what does this have to do with Beth’s blog? Well, you might remember the post from Greg about preparing for the apocalypse. Bubba and I chimed back about our willingness to be a neighboring commune based around the work we are doing under the name “The Collective.” We have the pig thing down as well as several other domestic abilities so we hope that you will consider joining the larger community with the communes.

If you say yes, we’ll tell you the secret password so we know you’re not a zombie.

You can find information about The Collective and its crazy community doings by visiting www.thecollectivenewberg.com or www.currentlyonthemenu.com.