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Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm

I"m a farmer, thinker, and writer. I can"t seem to help myself. It"s what I do, who I am, and what I love. clatterridgefarm.substack.com

science nature

All Episodes

2:00

Between The Brook and The Cedars

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/04/15

When my mom was a child, there were cows and pigs on our property and chicken coops, and barns to explore. But by the time she and my dad built their house “in the cow pasture between the brook and the cedars” - and filled it with five kids, the cows were long gone. I think with all of us in tow, my dad figured that he had more than enough livestock to care for, and there was no need to add to the chaos.The cows never returned, and the field stopped being grazed. Where he mowed twice a year, it

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2:42

Stay Awhile

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/04/09

Life to me is like a dinner party that I don’t ever want to end. Everyone I have ever cared about is seated at the table next to me. I am surrounded with friendship and immersed in love. The food is phenomenal (all grown locally and sustainably of course.) The beeswax candle on the table flickers, and smells divine, but it never melts. A gentle fire crackles in the fireplace nearby. A nostalgic playlist sets the mood and reminds us of all the good times we’ve had together. Toasts are being made and

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3:42

Welcome Shiitakes, Lambs, and Spring!

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/04/03

We had several lambs born this week. Most of them are very healthy and full of beans, but as always, we have a couple whose commitment to staying alive is dubious at best. I had a vet tell me once, “sheep are born looking for a way to die.” At the time I thought he was terribly cynical, but sometimes I think he might be right. As wonderful as newborn lambs are – there is an inordinate amount of stress for the first few days of their lives.On the other hand, as if not to be outdone by the lambs once

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1:43

For The Love of Spring

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/03/26

The most wonderful sound in the whole wide world is, without a doubt, the evening song of the Wood Thrush. The mesmerizing flute-like notes carry and echo across the ridge and weave their way in and out of the forest’s edge. The sound is soulful, somewhat haunting and deeply magical. When I hear it, I know I’m home and that no matter what else is going on beyond my forested retreat- at this moment in time, everything is going to be okay.I love the little potbellied Wood Thrush deeply - but I have to

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2:12

More Lambs - Fewer Kings

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/03/19

In an attempt to protect their monopoly on the wool industry, England tried hard to discourage one from ever taking hold in its American colonies. To that end, the exporting of sheep to America was expressly forbidden, but by 1655, a few smuggled sheep had multiplied to 10,000. Oops! I’m not sure what I find more amusing; that colonial sheep smuggling was actually a thing or that breeding sheep became such a subversive (and successful) act of independence.Clearly unable to completely stop America’s

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2:52

A Chance to Explain

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/03/12

When I was in my twenties a scuba diving accident landed me in the hospital for ten days. I was living in California, and though I didn’t have any family nearby I had a lot of friends. They all rallied around and visited me often and while most of them made a concerted effort to cheer me up, what I remember best was my friend Jules. She was taking an art class at a local community college and would stop by in between work and school. I’d wake up and see her sitting in the chair sketching. I’d say

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0:45

A Symphony of Sap

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/03/05

When we open up the sugar house in the morning, there’s often just the sound of the frozen ground crunching beneath our feet, the singing of a few early morning birds, and perhaps an intermittent drip of sap dropping into an empty sap bucket. As the day progresses, though, the trees warm up and the sap really begins to flow. The warmer it gets the faster it flows, and by mid-day the trees surrounding our sugar house are a symphony of drops dripping and splashing as the taps flow in earnest. This is

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3:26

The Morally Superior Maple

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/02/26

We tapped our sugar maples this week, and that to me is the beginning of spring. The sap will run as long as the temperatures are below freezing at night and well above freezing during the day. The “sugaring” season usually lasts about 6 weeks, or until the trees start to bud.Maple Syrup was a dietary staple for the Native Americans that lived in New England. When little else was available in early spring, they relied heavily on maple syrup for sustenance. It takes at least 40 gallons of sap boiled

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1:22

Patience!

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/02/20

Luckily for me, the joy of spring is wrapped up in its anticipation. If I woke up one morning to a garden in full bloom, I’d be thrilled and in awe, but I’d acclimate, and the novelty would quickly fade.Spring for me is like a wonderfully drawn out, well-crafted love story. And like any great courtship, there is allure and longing - and impatience bordering on despair.The daytime temperatures this week were warm enough for collecting sap in short sleeved shirts. It felt so decadent and then came the

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3:28

Sowing Seeds

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/02/12

As Christianity spread half a world away, a new way of life was also taking hold here in New England. About two thousand years ago, the cultivation of corn – though curiously slow to catch on, was transforming how the woodland tribes lived and related to their environment – and to each other.For several thousand years, the tribes that called New England home had lived as hunter gatherers. Survival was challenging, but their world was relatively peaceful. Traveling in small bands of 5-30 members,

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3:19

Keep On Keeping On

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/02/06

Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder why I keep farming.A couple years ago, we bought hay from a farmer whose family has been farming the same land for a hundred and fifty years or so. He said jokingly “I have come to the realization that I’m not a farmer anymore, technically, I’m now a pet food manufacturer. You are the only one buying my hay for livestock - everyone else is either feeding pet goats or rescue ponies.”I knew he was making light of it, and I laughed, but even so it tapped into a

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4:04

Old Friends

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/01/30

After my dad passed away, two of his friends clearly felt an obligation to keep an eye on me and my various endeavors.“Uncle” John had been an engineer with my father at Hamilton Standard, and a lifelong friend. He made a point of stopping by to monitor Anne’s and my home building progress - which admittedly took forever. We only worked on our house nights, weekends, and in between other building projects, so progress was indeed pretty slow. Not infrequently we’d find notes stuck to the front door –

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5:10

The Improbability of Kindness

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/01/22

The 6.1 magnitude earthquake that hit Los Angeles early one morning in October 1987 literally rocked my world and my whole sense of security within it. It was the first time I had experienced nature as something to be afraid of – before then it had always been a good friend. A friend I thought I knew.The noise of the earthquake was in itself terrifying, as it roared like a freight train passing underneath. Every fiber of my being wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. Standing up was hard

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3:06

Getting Back to Normal

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/01/15

Seeing the holidays in the rear-view mirror is not unlike getting over a virulent stomach bug. The relief of simply getting back to normal is so satisfying as to be positively transformative in nature. The gratitude, the deep contentment, the blissful solitude – it’s possible that I have just gained a whole new lease on life.Our dogs have come out of hiding and are sound asleep - sprawled across the living room floor. Happiness for them is found in the simple things as well. Like being able to nap

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2:49

Marcescence (and a blanket of snow)

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/01/08

There are few things on this planet as peaceful as walking in a New England forest after a snowstorm. The sound deadening blanket covering the earth creates a blissful silence and is the perfect tonic for an overly noisy world. The welcomed hush is broken only by the gentle rustle of leaves stubbornly clinging to a few outlying trees.Most deciduous trees drop their leaves as soon as the color fades in Autumn. But a few, like white oak and beech trees, are “marcescent” and hold on to their dead

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2:39

Counting Peas

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2026/01/01

Our friends with culinary ties to the South made their annual pilgrimage to buy smoked pork jowl from our farm last week. The jowl is traditionally cooked with collard greens, black-eyed-peas and served with cornbread. All of which are believed to bring good luck and prosperity in the New Year. The meal served either at midnight, or on New Year’s Day, has many iterations across the South and very specific ingredients and traditions surrounding each variation. I can’t keep track of them all but the

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3:12

In Praise of the Christmas Orange

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2025/12/26

I always thought my mom’s tradition of putting an orange in the bottom of everyone’s stocking was a waste of perfectly usable stocking space, and I told her so every Christmas. She explained that growing up oranges were a special treat, and as a child, one of the magical joys of Christmas. As a kid I found that hard to believe, but it makes sense to me now. In an era before refrigeration and mass transportation, everyone ate locally. You knew your farmer, and you ate what was in season, and I can

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1:17

The Scruffiest Tree

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2025/12/19

When we were kids, we were fortunate enough to be able to cut our own Christmas trees, and of all our holiday traditions, getting the tree was definitely my favorite.We’d head out the back door and climb up the quarter mile path through the ravine to a grove of spruce trees that my grandmother had tasked my uncles with planting years before.Our Christmas tree lot was deeply magical. The trees, by then, were magnificently tall, perfectly formed, and densely packed. We’d wander about and look at each

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1:17

A Fox, a Crow, and Me

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2025/12/13

Just as the sun came up, the snow stopped, and the wind moved on. It was so bitterly cold, though, the only hope of staying warm was to just keep moving. I wanted to check the fence line for any trees that might have come down in the storm, and I was indeed making great time. When I crossed the stream, though, a series of tracks caught my eye. Pleased to see that I wasn’t the only one out doing chores in the freezing cold, I paused for a while to look at the storyboard recorded in the snow.A mouse,

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2:25

The Prettiest Pigs in Town

Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm ·

2025/12/04

On this cold December morning, the witch hazel in our wooded pig pasture seems quite pleased with itself. Long after all our autumn leaves have fallen and every other plant has completely faded, Connecticut’s native witch hazel comes into bloom. The timing seems self-defeating as there are very few cold tolerant insects this time of year that are available to pollinate it. It is, however, the only blossoming game in town, so despite how few pollinators there are, there is no competition for their

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