Episode 242 Susan's Shire: The Joy of Handmade Gifts

What are you thankful for? It seems like the Thanksgiving table will be pretty empty, and pretty bleak for many people this year. And what kind of hope is there in the midst of so much death and pollution and destruction and isolation in the world today? What are we supposed to learn here, anyway? The answer: We learn from Fungi (mushrooms, to most of us). This amazing organism has been around long enough to be in the fossil record, and has been doing the same th...

23 Nov 202011min

There is finally a chill in the air! Some of us here in warmer climates look forward to the time each year when cold weather arrives, so we can cozy up on the sofa in front of the fireplace without melting from the heat outside. 60 degrees is probably a very reasonable temperature to start up the fireplace, we think. But in other places, cold is a constant reality, and it is not to be taken lightly, especially in the area of food production. In the far north in places...

16 Nov 202035min

2020 has been a year filled with catastrophic disasters of all types, and the only thing unclear is which movie we’re reenacting at the current moment. Backdraft meets Twister meets 2012, with a dash of the Day after Tomorrow and a near miss by Armageddon. If those weren’t crazy enough, there were a few reports of brushes from Orca and Jaws tossed in for variety, with slices of Yul Brenner and Chuck Heston in The Ten Commandments (Locusts and plagues, no less). I could point...

9 Nov 202021min

With the past weekend in the rearview mirror, we’ve wrapped up October, Halloween, and the craziness of voting here in the U.S. -- at least for most of us. Some will still be dealing with both the last little bits of voting in person and leftover Halloween candy for the rest of the week, and both might be somewhat traumatic for us in some way or another. But we’re feeling lighter already and a little slaphappy, so we’ll bring up some ideas that seem far apart, but are actually con...

2 Nov 202045min

It’s donkey time again! The Donkey Welfare Symposium was a wild one last October (there were libations and tattoos and singing farriers and speakers from exotic ports of call), and it looks like this year’s virtual conference will follow that theme. “Donkeys in the Wild” is kicking off virtually on October 30 -31, 2020, and we’re celebrating by bringing you our interview from last year’s event with Jessica Anselment. This intrepid soul is the author of two donkey-related chi...

26 Okt 202034min

It’s alive! And kicking. Or squirming, as it were. Either way, it’s not pretty, and is akin to the horror films that many might be ingesting this month. In the true spirit of the upcoming Halloween observances across the land, we’re going to bring you a podcast filled with gruesome tales of things growing where other things don’t want them to grow. John Hurt will not participate, and neither will Kurt Russell, and no one’s body parts will end up anywhere other th...

17 Okt 20201h 5min

Rock and roll music and the combination and recombination of genetics have so many commonalities, and not just on the math end of things. They both started with older things and brought in new things, and are constantly bringing in more influences to make something old stronger, or something new and different. We all march to a different drummer, after all, so there is a beauty in how the pieces go together no matter which you prefer. The music of the spheres can mean a perf...

12 Okt 202045min

Introduction: We’re on the road again (albeit with a little bit more “distance” in our distance these days). This week we’re celebrating our new favorite color – “Gotland Gray.” We’re bringing you a conversation from last year’s Sheep and Wool festival in Rhinebeck, New York, where Amy Corey of Little River Farm told us a little bit about the characteristics and history of the Gotland – the petite-with-a punch-sheep. And Amy is pretty good at pronouncing those Swedish...

5 Okt 202017min