The Blog
When people learn I have goats, they love to remind me that "goats eat EVERYTHING!" Don't believe it. Goats are incredibly picky. If their hay has touched the ground, for instance, it's deemed unfit for eating. Worse, they're not only selectively picky, but incredibly sensitive; just a few bites of the wrong thing can kill them within hours.
Growing up, I never sat down for a meal without a book, magazine, or -in more desperate times- a shopping catalog to flip through. Unless it was dinner, of course, where I wasn't allowed to mentally check out with a good read. Fast forward through the years, and that distraction has morphed into a smart phone, with a side of NPR.
The chicken of the past was a rare bird. Literally, at least when it came to the dinner table. When Herbert Hoover promised “a chicken in every pot” should he win, he wasn't so much referring to the innocuous white meat that chicken has become today, but rather the exclusive meal that chicken used to be. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, chicken was rarely on the dinner table, unless an old hen happened to survive long enough to make it to the soup pot...
I used my lists to stay organized and goal-oriented, focused on priorities and reminded of commitments. I needed them to keep track of everything from the miniscule (FEED SOURDOUGH STARTER!) to the overambitious (Monday: work, paint shed, host dinner party, etc.). I tried all the strategies, such as the “could do/should do” model, the “urgent/necessary/it’d be nice” columns and the darling of the craft world, the Bullet Journal. I listed on envelopes, in notebooks, throughout day planners, and sometimes directly onto my hand.
