Life, Cultivated

Montanans love to tell people how much they love the seasons here. But, if you pay attention, you'll note that this praise often comes in the spring or fall – when the brutality of winter ...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2014/05/overwintered.html

Last week, I spent a morning lumbering over a 6-months-along-but-looks-more-like-8-months pregnant belly, collecting tools from the shed to pick away at a small shallow grave in still frozen gr...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2013/02/on-death-and-farm-life.html

I feel like we are really starting from scratch. I should have been documenting this whole thing -- the big leap our family has taken since I last wrote -- but it's almost as if it were too pr...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/11/the-new-farm.html

 A few weeks ago, I was ready to ring the bell. Big deadlines, covering for other editors, working around limited child care, a big camping/festival/selling weekend to get ready for and Jacob o...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/08/all-kinds-of-awesome.html

We had just a fantastic time this weekend at the 2nd Annual Red Ants Pants Festival in White Sulphur Springs. It's nothing short of amazing to watch a big pasture outside of a small Montana tow...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/07/heres-to-family-farms-and-music-and.html

There are days when your life make sense. And then there are days it doesn't. Being aware and respectful of how quickly it can change from one to the other can make you more thankful for the da...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/07/when-things-make-sense-and-then-they.html

Hey there. We've been off gallivanting in North Dakota. Why? Because that's what Montana farmers do, apparently. On the only three days they have off in a row, they drive to North Dakota to talk ...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/07/hey-there.html

Summer means pizza around here. There's no better way to carry all that goodness coming off the farm to your mouth than a good crust covered with cheese. The latest creation took some of the ...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/06/pizza-season.html

PHOTO DUMP!  In case you're as scattered as I am and just want to look at something and not think for a second, I give you: The week in pictures from a life cultivated and Prairie Heritage F...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/06/photo-dump-in-case-youre-as-scattered.html

Our two farm apprentices arrived. And let me tell you, they're magic. Pure magic. Not only are they awesome folks to be around, they're super duper hard workers and for once, for once, we actuall...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/05/time-capsule.html

As a relatively new mother, I'm still figuring out my role – in the house, in the family, in the workplace, in the business world, in the mothering world and in my own sense of self. It's a...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/05/convincing-ourselves-were-mom-enough-or.html

I mean really. Who knew a cheap pair of sunglasses and a new bike helmet could create this kind of joy. (Or, whatever that is.) In other news this week, both Jacob and I are published -- lik...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/05/cheap-sunglasses-and-book-real-book.html

Apologies, there's not going to be much meat to this post. Or, perhaps any post from here until September. But photos. You'll get lots of photos. And recipes. (And sentences that aren't really se...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/04/run-and-gun.html

Saturday, it was 70 degrees. Sunday, it was snowing and 30. Welcome to spring in Montana. But no complaints from the Cowgills. If there are two things we love, they're digging in the dirt a...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/04/spring-thaw.html

We're off to Helena tomorrow to speak at a Grow Local event for the Helena Community Gardens with a few of our favorite farmer-friends. So, for the last few weeks, we've been thinking and talki...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/04/were-off-to-helena-tomorrow-to-speak-at.html

Three things conspired this weekend to give me a fuller picture of who/what I've become. First, I start to notice that with more regularity, Willa has taken to shortening Mama -- the sweetest w...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/04/hello-mom.html

The current issue of Montana Magazine -- the one with the fox on the cover (a real fox, not me, jeez) -- features a really wonderful story by Beth Judy on our very own Prairie Heritage Farm . ...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/03/in-montana-magazine.html

These days, Willa is asking, basically from the moment she wakes up, to go outside. OK, so it really sounds like she's screaming "Die-ee!" "Die-ee!" "Die-ee!" over and over again, but I qu...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/03/outside-i-said-outside.html

 Image comes from here and used with Creative Commons license.  A few months after her second child was born, a friend's doctor told her she could get more sleep if she went to bed when h...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/02/on-presence-practice-and-pooping-out.html

One of the best things I've done for my family's budget and my family's health is rethinking the convenience foods we use in our kitchen. A few years ago, when we were first starting the f...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/02/7-store-bought-things-in-your-kitchen.html

I celebrated my 32nd birthday last week by getting up, first at 2:30 a.m., and then for good at 5:15 a.m. thanks to a toddler yelling for her Mama. I talked to Jacob about the never-ending ques...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/01/allow.html

I spent the last week with a sick toddler, both of us covered in vomit and at times, too dizzy to even stand. That Willa could be miserable, all puking and nauseous and still be cuddly and swee...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2012/01/many-faces-and-facets-of-courage.html

I've sat down maybe seven times in the last two weeks to write something and every time I have, what comes out is some permutation of: I'm so, very, ridiculously, incredibly, totally, freaki...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2011/12/holiday-cheer-and-light-and-hope-and.html

Let me start by telling you that over the last week, we killed and processed 98 turkeys, delivered them across the state (Great Falls, Helena, Bozeman, Missoula and then back to Great Falls ...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2011/11/warning-after-butchering-98-turkeys-you.html

This weekend, we got our first snow. And then, we turned back the clocks. Our race against winter has ended. I'm not sure we lost, but it certainly doesn't feel like we won, either. I'm g...

http://www.lifecultivated.com/2011/11/race-against-winter.html