2020 Incoming

I have high hopes for 2020. I have several projects in various states of progress I plan to work on this year, and my hope is that you will see some of that effort here in the coming months.

If you’re interested in following my progress more closely than it might otherwise be updated here, you are welcome to follow me several other places:

First, there is my Patreon site. If you join as a $1 a month member, you get access to far more content than you will anywhere else, and higher levels of membership promise even more benefits.

Second, there is my Twitter feed, where I mostly participate in the #vss365 daily very short story writing prompt. You will also find links to much of the content I create in other places.

Third, there is me Wordcraft Facebook page. I update this page with all sorts of different things on a fairly regular basis.

Finally, there is my Instagram account. While it is not exclusively writing related, I do post writing there, especially poetry, on occasion.

I look forward to sharing my progress with you in the coming year.

DLH

Well, hello

I haven’t updated this site in quite a while and, unfortunately, it shows. Changes are coming, but it may take me a while to get them implemented.

In the meantime, if you want to see a real-time list of what I have in stock, I sell my coffee through the Miami County Locally Grown Virtual Market, and the varieties and prices on that site are up-to-date.

So, what’s coming? Well, first off, I plan to update my varieties and prices here. I’m also in the process of moving into a new roastery that will make roasting coffee easier. Once that’s up and running, I plan to revisit my current varieties of coffee to add some and, perhaps, discontinue some others. My main focus will be on adding sustainably grown, fair trade, organic coffees from sources I can verify.

Until then, stay tuned. More is coming.

DLH

Creativity and the creator

If you spend enough time around creative types, you’re bound to hear the same lament: I’m a creator! Why am I not creating?

I suffer from this lament to the extreme on occasion, and while I could launch into the laundry list of reasons, real and imagined, that I don’t create even when I want to be, I want to focus here on one:

We creatives often make creating way too complicated.

Again, there are all sorts of reasons for that, both real and imagined, but the simple fact is that the act of creation is often simply a matter of doing it without concern for the outcome. Unfortunately, we often get tangled up in worrying about the outcome way before the product even exists, and the result is that the creating never gets done.

It’s easy and cliche to just claim the answer is to go create. The fact is creative types live in their heads, and all of those real and imagined obstacles to creating are real for those experiencing them. The single biggest success that any creator can have is overcoming them.

I can’t say what will work for anyone else, but I can say for myself the way over/through/around that block is often clear cut: simplify. My projects often become unmanagibly grandiose, and by letting them become so, I often can’t wrap my brain around finishing them. When I simplify them, they tend to come out, and sometimes even approach the level of grandeur I imagined.

My task going forward, then, is to simplify the approach I’m taking to what I create so that I’m actually creating. It’s a tall order even then. Here’s to doing it.

DLH

Reintroducing this blog

As you can see from the history, this blog has languished for a while. Well, it will no more.

What prompted the absence and the change?

It started with the fact that I got really sick two and a half years ago–in fact, so sick I almost died–and I’ve spent the time since recovering. I’m now recovered enough that I am am able to get back into what my wife, Keba, and I set out to do with our farm, Innisfree on the Stillwater.

Further, beyond my work on the farm, I am also working to develop myself as a freelance writer, and it turns out having a solid portfolio is an important part of that process. It seems to me that writing about what I am doing is a great way to populate that portfolio, so here we are.

My goal is to post here at least once a week, or more often if some subject spurs me to write more. I hope you’ll join me for the journey.

DLH

Please excuse the mess

Really, it’s more of a metaphorical mess as we go about the business of steering the beast that is Innisfree on the Stillwater in a new direction.

What does that direction look like? Well, we’re now share-cropping organic row crops, raising wool and meat sheep instead of cattle, and transitioning to perennial permiculture over annual monoculture.

The goal is to make our farm a model for what the future of sustainable farming can look like. Until then, it might seem like a mess.

DLH

So, I’m still here and kicking

It’s been quite a year at Innisfree on the Stillwater. After more than two years of health struggles, we decided to sell off our cattle herd and change directions some. Our 90 acres of crop ground is now certified organic, and we’re adding 10 more acres of former pasture to that number in the coming year. We’re now raising small herds of Shetland fiber sheep and a mixed herd of hair meat sheep. We’re taking a step back from a lot of our customer facing efforts in order to regroup and see where the future lies.

We’re not done, but we are changing. We haven’t quite settled out the future yet, but we know it will involve this place. More will follow.

DLH

Dennis L Hitzeman’s Regular Reading List

Some of you may remember my once-upon-a-time News Reading List that I had not updated in ages. Well, I recently finished updating that list and renamed it my Regular Reading List (mostly because it’s not just news anymore and I don’t read every link daily). I’m providing a link here for interested parties who might want to know where I get my information from.

DLH