Mr. Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look, and march on, his feet making no noise on the lumpy walk. For long ago he had wisely changed to sneakers when strolling at night, because the dogs in intermittent squads would parallel his journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and lights might […]
←Part Two Country Life with Fred The Stock Market Crash of 1929 hit everyone hard, including the newlyweds. In early 1930, they moved to the outskirts of Redding, Connecticut, to a 55-acre farm for their retirement. They, like many during that time, felt they could live cheaply off the land. That spring, Ruth Stout
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←Part One New York City Soon after May’s death, the family made the move to New York City. Their new home would be a four-story brownstone on West 118th St., less than a block from Morningside Park (designed by the famous American landscaper Frederick Law Olmsted). Ruth would live in New York City
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We bought a farm a few years ago. It’s a small old farm with only about four acres in southeastern Colorado, but it was big enough that it brought with it all the old farm needs, such as replanting fields, repairing outbuildings, learning how to irrigate with siphon tubes, and spending fabulous amounts of money.
It’s 1975 and Ruth Stout, in her early 90s, is being filmed at her home. She’s explaining her daily schedule, how many hours a day she works to maintain, harvest, and freeze food from a 45 x 50 foot vegetable garden which grows enough food for two people. (She hasn’t been in a grocery store
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My dad had a knack for growing things, and just about every seed, cutting, or plant he placed in the ground grew like gangbusters. If they didn’t, he’d by god do something about it. The shelves in his lean-to garden shed held an arsenal of insecticides, herbicides, fertilizers, turf builders, weed killers, and slug granules.