When it comes to raising animals for meat, most people put up a wall. They don’t hold them, they don’t talk to them, they don’t get too close, because it makes the end easier.

We’ve chosen the opposite. Our rabbits are held, talked to, and given love every day.

In our last newsletter we asked a question:

If money and policies disappeared, and all we had was land and food, how would you care for your community, not just yourself or your family but everyone around you?

The days are shrinking, the sun sets sooner, and the season is drawing to a close. For us that does not mean the work is over. It simply shifts from tending plants and animals outside to stacking, storing, freezing, canning, and tucking away the food that will carry us through the winter. This is the point in the year when every bit of energy invested in the farm pays off. The freezers are filling, the shelves are lined with jars, and the pantry becomes its own kind of insurance policy.

When everything feels unstable, people look for anchors. Markets collapse, currencies lose ground, corporations tighten their grip. The systems that tell you they can protect you are the same ones that profit when you are dependent. Real stability comes from something they cannot print or inflate: land.

I was diagnosed with PTSD recently. Not from war. Not from disaster. From work.

Most people think self-reliance starts with a big jump. Buy land, plant a huge garden, get animals, and flip the switch overnight. That’s the fastest way to fail. You don’t start by betting everything on skills you’ve never tried. You start small, because every mistake costs less when the stakes are low. Dabbling is how you find out what actually works for you, what you’re willing to keep doing, and what falls apart in practice.

At Carlton Hill Farm we make use of every part of the rabbit. Nothing goes to waste because each piece has value, whether it ends up on our table, in the garden, or feeding our animals who live and work alongside us.

Labor Day gets dressed up as a long weekend, a sale at the mall, or maybe a cookout with burgers and beer. The original meaning is buried under discount flyers and corporate slogans about “honoring workers.” Most of it is noise. The day isn’t supposed to be about buying more things you don’t need. It was meant to acknowledge labor itself, the sweat, the calluses, the effort that keeps everything moving.

When we left social media, something became clear. The partnerships we thought were solid were not. Not a single local business reached out. Not one of the food organizations we have partnered with bothered to check in. These are the very organizations we have fought for, defended, and taken blows for. We shook their hands and gave them hundreds of pounds of fresh food and pantry items for free.

The grocery store has trained people to believe that abundance is permanent. Strawberries in January. Tomatoes in February. Fresh berries, asparagus, and sweet corn every single week of the year. You walk in, and the shelves are full. It feels like it will always be that way.

A small farm like ours only survives if we can talk directly to the people who care about it. That is why our newsletter matters more than any social media account ever could.

One of the best parts of getting a new pet is picking out its name. We spend hours bouncing ideas off of each other until a name clicks, and we just can't let it go. Our dogs, Moira and Clementine (Clemmy) started a new trend for us of naming our pets after comedies, a trend that we've now carried over to the chickens.

My grandfather ran a five-acre sheep farm in a small town in southern Colorado. His tools were worn smooth from years of his grip. His workday started before the sun and ended when the animals were fed and the fields were quiet. It was small, simple, and direct. You raised the animals, you sheared the wool, and you kept what you needed for your family. He died when I was eighteen. I am forty-one now, and Alexys and I farm a single acre in the Mid-Ohio Valley of West Virginia. The gap between his way of farming and ours could be measured in decades or in light years.

There is a not-so quiet assumption that “local” automatically means better. Better quality, better ethics, better treatment of workers, better for the environment. The moment a business is labeled local, it gets a halo and people stop asking questions.

Rabbit is a common protein around the world but often seen as specialty here. On our farm, we raise rabbits because they’re sustainable and provide multiple meals from one animal.

At about $19.50, one rabbit can feed your family three to four dinners—much more nourishing than spending the same on treats like ice cream or coffee.

If you’re curious how to cook rabbit and stretch it into meals, this blog shows you the four meals we made with a single rabbit.

Farmers markets are sold as a win-win: farmers earn more, customers get fresh local food, and communities keep money close to home. The reality is far less romantic.

You’re not visiting a U-Pick farm for the experience. You’re working for free.

They hand you a basket and call it tradition. They romanticize it as “connecting with your food,” but let’s be honest: no one romanticized berry picking when it was migrant labor in the sun for $2.35 an hour. Now it’s just dressed up in gingham and nostalgia.

That quick swap of your extra tomatoes for your neighbor’s eggs isn’t just convenient. It’s part of a quiet shift in how people feed themselves and each other. Once upon a time, borrowing a cup of sugar wasn’t nostalgic. It was survival. That world is coming back. Not because people miss it, but because they need it.

If you've ever walked away from a patch of beautiful land because there was a Black Walnut tree nearby, you're not alone. We recently had someone inquire about our Crop Collective who explained they don't have much room because they are surrounded by black walnut trees and so they have to use raised beds. We smiled because every single one of our gardens is under or adjacent to massive Black Walnut trees.

Let’s get this out of the way first: the bees aren’t gone. Not everywhere. Not yet. But they are unstable. And if your food system depends on stability, that should concern you.

Pollinator populations are in decline—regionally, seasonally, and sometimes catastrophically. Some places still have healthy native bees, hoverflies, and managed hives doing their job. Others don’t. And the thing is, by the time you notice the decline in your own garden, it’s already too late to pivot.

We’re not anti-pollinator. We’re anti-fragile. We want food that grows even if the bees don’t show up that day, that week, or that year. Not because it’s fashionable. Because it’s practical.