Living.

sheep and alpacas grazing calmly in a summer pasture

This is living.

This is the Why and the What of living here, the philosophy that informs the choice, the foundation for everything. If you’re curious about what’s going on behind my eyeballs (hey, me too!) or why I might do things the way I do them, this is where you’ll find those kinds of thoughts.

It’s in Living that we discover what we’re made of, what really matters to us, and how to live with fidelity to our values. In this version of Living, it’s the record of (among other things) my “no daylight” practice, the ongoing work of making sure my claimed values and my actual choices are locked together – no daylight can creep between them. It all comes back to land, to husbandry, stewardship and to care on a particular patch of land, at a particular time, with a particular cast of characters. You’ll get to know them all, I promise.

Whether it’s ordinary days, reflections on responsibility or longer pieces of writing that take shape over time, Living is where you’ll find your way into our current. Some posts stand alone, while others belong to larger, serialized projects that will grow slowly and are revisited as the seasons turn or Living reorients my perspective. This is not a polished archive (head over to Keeping for that), or a how-to manual (that’s in Tending). It’s an invitation to walk alongside, to notice what’s being noticed, and to see how understanding emerges through Living, not theory.

Welcome to my frontier.

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Notes from Living

  • Stewardship in the Straw

    Stewardship in the Straw

    Everyone knows Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. If you’re in Alberta, you probably tack on other seasons like Mud, Bugs, Fire/Smoke, Harvest. They’re all part of the calendar and if you spend any time outside, chances are you build schedules around the seasons. Here at the homestead, we have two more seasons we add –

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  • Animal Welfare Approved

    Animal Welfare Approved

    What is A Greener World’s Animal Welfare Certification? Certified Animal Welfare Approved by A Greener World (AGW) is an independent third-party certification that verifies animals are raised according to high-welfare, pasture- and range-based standards—with care for both animals and the environment. This is not a “checkbox” label, no rubber stamp. The path to certification is

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About Me

I’m Tara, the shepherd and author behind this blog. A first-generation, non-knitting shepherd, I came to this life through land stewardship and a commitment to conservation. From the ground up.

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