🌳🪵 Interview with Wildflower-Farm 👩‍🌾🙏

Interview with @Wildflower-Farm 15.04.2025

Thank you very much Amanda that i can interview you for the forum!! 🙏🙏 I have 20 questions and this is part I. If you dont want to answer a question, I can of course make a new one!! 😊😇😇 Many thanks!! 🌞🌈🌞

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ PART I

1: How long have you been a member of PPG and what do you think of it? Are there things you like the most? And what do you think can maybe be improved?

I am quite new to PPG. I like it's focus on bringing the international community together. Hmm I could offer things to improve. But I am not sure it would be fair for me to do that at this juncture. I feel like I am still very new, and I don't know enough about it yet, and I try not to make snap judgements without time to really explore people, the community, the whole thing. So what needs fixing, the jury is still out. I will say the ads are obnoxious. Beyond that I don't feel as though I have a right at this time to criticize anything about this space.

2: Can you describe where you live? And do you like it? Will you ever live in a different place or do you hope to stay in your home forever?

Sure, ok, so I live on a small 5 acre loosely 2 hectare piece of land surrounded mainly by woods, on what is called a homestead. Homesteading goes back to the early settlers of this country. It is the practice, of creating a self sufficient independent small farm that relies solely on the farmer and is designed to feed the farmer and their family rather than as a market farm producing food for the public. Often especially today, homesteads can be found in less populated areas usually out in nature but more and more even in the suburbs. I am in a very very rural suburb of Boston, a small farming community of under 3000 people. There are some small market farms here and people like me and many other kinds of people but this town is a bit of a farming community with a long (by american standards,) proud history of farming.

On my homestead, I have fruit trees, berry bushes, large gardens of food, a greenhouse for winter food, a chicken coop, a goat pen, etc... There is also a swimming pool. I put that in after I nearly died working outside due to heat stroke last year.

My way of life is rather old fashioned. I spin wool into yarn and knit it, I sew, I bake my own breads and mill my own flour. Make my own household cleaners and produce my own self care products. To live on a homestead as I do is to wear many many many hats, and develop a wide range of skill sets.

I came here because of allergies. I had to find clean food which is hard to get even buying organic in this country. I am allergic to the off label chemicals and preservatives, deathly allergic with the hospital bills to prove it. Once out here it took time but I learned to love this place and this way of life it was unlike anything I had ever done before. I never imagined I would live this way. I became very in awe of the earth itself living this way. I developed a new goal which was to try to create an example of a way to live that was environmentally clean and non harmful, without losing the important modern amenities we all live on. To show this world it can be done. So that is what I do now. I keep seeking and implementing new ways to be clean and functional.

My farming community, is tiny by the standards of my nation and state. I come from Massachusetts, and the great city of Boston, where live educational facilities such as Harvard and MIT. This state is fiercely liberal as am I. It also has some of the longest most interesting history in the country. From the signing of the declaration of independence to the tea party to the witch trials in Salem, to some of the early Harvard men and their philosophy that lead to places such as Fruitlands in Harvard, and Emerson's community in Concord, to the great molasses spill in the North End of 1919. You can still on super hot days in the summer smell the molasses.

Boston, is a large city. Originally called Shawmut, by the native americans in the area. It was probably the first area to be ummm "civilized."

I live out in the middle of the state where there be dragons on the map. The city is about an hourish to the east of me as is the ocean. This state is also called The Bay State, as we have a bay. Out west of me about an hour you get mountains. Mount Washington, is probably the most remote place in the state.

Massachusetts is known for Tom Brady, movies like Good Will Hunting among others, Whitey Bulger and by the way has anyone seen him? High education, medical industry, liberalism,.... We tie with Rhode Island which developed out of a religious dispute with some of our early religious fundis, for the most atheist state in the nation though due to also commonly being known as American Ireland, we also have plenty of catholics.

Massachusetts, is on the east coast about a 12 hour drive from the Canadian border. We are in an area known as New England. New England, also includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. I like to say New York, is an honorary member in spirit though unofficially.

I used to like my home very much. I love Massachusetts.... But I feel like this country has completely lost it's mind. Canada the 51st state? Tariff wars? A bloviated orange bag of turds in the whitehouse.... Deporting innocent people to hell holes... I don't recognize this place anymore. This is NOT the home I grew up in. I am deeply saddened and horrified and troubled too by this place lately.

I HAVE lived in other places. I have also done a lot of traveling and spent extended periods all over the place. At one time I would have said no. I will never live anywhere else again. I am done. Now that things have become insane.... I am open to returning to some parts of eastern and western Europe and I have been oggling a house in Canada as a possible relocation place as well, if things continue as they are here. I want no part of what is happening here now.

3: Where did you grow up when you were still super young? Do you like your life now more or when you were with your parents?

I grew up in Central Square Cambridge, in a giant house that was home to a collection of international Buddhist hippies. It was founded by a zen master of the Korean Jogye Order. I want to say it was founded sometime in the 70s but I was born in 1980 so I am actually not sure. I know my parents lived there at least 4 years prior to my birth. It was a commune located kind of right neat both MIT and Harvard, and not far from BU and BC... So we had a lot of college professors from all over the world and doctoral students, and nobel prize winners passing through. The average length of stay for people was between 6 months and 2 years though some were there a lot longer. People interested in zen meditation from all over the world made it their home. 5 bathrooms 50 people, 1 kitchen. We ate together, in summer at least when I was little there was only 1 air conditioner on hot nights we carried our pillows to the Dharma Room and slept on the meditation cushions. It was a tight knit community. It was home and every person living there growing up was a member of my family. They all called my folks by their first names. I learned too not to call them mom and dad but by their first names cuz that is what everyone around me called them... When I was a teenager we moved out.

We then lived in a city subburb about 30 minutes from home (the commune) in a town called Lexington. I was not a fan of Lexington. A lot of wealthy snotty well educated through books, no life experience beyond their super white wealthy community people. It was very hard, growing up I had not known tv or most movies, or even a lot of modern culture that most children had access to. So trying to then build relationships with these kids my age who seemed to be from another planet and likely saw me the same way was difficult. In my teens I slept 1 mile from Lexington Green, where The Shot Heard Round The World Was Fired, at some obscene hour of morning. Every year they used to re-enact it and I would get worken up by the sound of some dumb ass in a costume firing blanks from an archaic musket , which was annoying. For those unfamiliar with this shot, it was literally the shot that began the revolutionary war. The first shot fired.

I loved the commune. I loved my life there. I loved my family there. I still miss them... Even though they were always changing moving in and then disappearing.... I still look for them in crowds, kinda like the parent of a missing child still looks in crowds of kids for their own that is missing... I can't help it, because I don't know what became of most of them... All I can do is hope that they moved on and that their lives have been amazing . Out here, I feel isolated sometimes and I am. But I LOVE what I am doing out here. It wasn't part of my life plan. At first I was unsure. But now I can't imagine living any other way. But is one better than the other? I dunno... I am not the same child that I was in my early days... So would I like it as much as I liked it then? I doubt it actually. Though at the time, I can't imagine a better place for me.

4: If you have to live on a deserted island for 1 year and you can ONLY bring 3 books. Which books do you bring with you?

Oh... Fuck........... Well kidlet, this is a cruel question.... Depends on the purpose... Do I need these books for survival? If so The Foxfire Series which is a collection of books that were originally a magazine produced in Appalachia, by a highschool class on the old ways and folk traditions of the elderly in their community who lived before electricity. If we are talking for personal self enrichment.... Hmmm..... The Birthhouse by Ami Mckay, The Mists Of Avalon, and hmmmm,... Maybe The White Goddess by Graves, or Spiral Dance by Starhawk, or perhaps The Secret History by Donna Tart.... Or possibly War And Peace, Gone With The Wind, The Quincunx, North Woods, If Women Rose Rooted, The Kalevala, Under The North Star Trilogy..... The 13th Tale, some 19th century gothic lit of some kind, or some treatise of folklore. I actually manage a book club that meets in person here at my small farm monthly. So I am always reading something. Either to further my understanding of farming and life close to nature, or something for book club or usually some sort of gothic, feminist, or folkloric literature.

5: If you can look in the future and find out one thing about your life, what would you like to find out?

My one question I would like the answer to? Will I ever raise a child? I would very much like to.

Thank you very much for the first part of this interview Amanda @Wildflower-Farm!! I like that you take a lot of effort to make the answers nicely and give a lot of detail so people really can understand a lot bc i think for a lot of people otherwise it is super difficult to think what it is like for example living in the commune. And btw we have from Donna Tart also the book The Secret History but in Dutch. And i did not read it yet. But u recognised it when you said it!!! I know i cant say too much yet bc i made the interview!! 😛 😛

If anybody wants to ask a question or post a comment you can do that below! ⬇️⬇️ More interviews of PPG members are on this page: overview of interviews. 🌸🌻❤️

I hope you will wait to read The Secret History. Because first you need to earn the concepts it dabbles in, i thought rather well. At least read The Bacchae by Euripides first. And first I would read some stuff by Homer like the Iliad and The Odyssey, at the very least. Otherwise, this book will fly right over your head and you probably won't enjoy it at all. To properly value you it, you need at least some very small foundation in the Greek classics, so you understand the concepts in play in this book. Books deserve to be appreciated as fully as possible. This is one of those books that has a prerequisite study that leads up to it.

Owww that is a good tip Amanda @Wildflower-Farm i did not know that yet!! 😛 I read The Odyssey when i was at primary school but like the book was written a bit differently and with a LOTTT of pictures too. 🙂 But now i want to read the whole book in the normal way. And i know the story of the Iliad but i dont know Euripides yes. But I know that @diogenes_cask has mentioned him on the forum!! 🙂 So maybe the book of Donna Tart is also a nice tip for him!!

And these are pictures of them that are nice for this forum:

In Dutch the book of Donna Tartt is De Verborgen Geschiedenis and in English it means the hidden history. But i think they mean the same with secret instead of hidden. 🙄🙄

I think they do mean the same. in the context of Donna Tart's book.

You must read the versions that are not for children. You may find you love them. I love them.
The Bacchae, is a bit different. It is a play. So you are reading an ancient script for an ancient greek drama that is based on real history and real religious practices and societal function. I was I think a junior or senior in highschool when I read it. Most who read it though tend to read it in college. But I was very interested in the subject matter and I was fortunate to have parents that permitted my wild reading. I think they were just glad I could read. Considering my severe dyslexia. I don't know you well, but the concepts of this last book are very different.... It's about ecstatic women who go into the mountains in ancient greece yearly for about a year. Women, in ancient greek society were the most controlled and oppressed group in society. partly because the life span was different and they were married very young alarmingly so by our modern standards, and they did not have the birth control pill, the vote, or equal right to work outside the home. They were basically pieces of property. Greeks from what of their philosophy I have studied which was a limited amount, so someone else may know more about this bit than I do.... Seemed to feel society functions it's best when everything has a place and a time. Or in this instance, there was a time and place for a bit of a rebellion for the oppressed. That rebellion, would take place in the mountains where the women would gather for a sacred woman's week of shreiking, drinking, and letting their internal insanity outwardly manifest while they were drunk off their rockers. Part of the tradition included bringing a baby lamb with them. As they drank they would coo at it and treat it as they would a child. They would drink more and only the goddess knows what other mind altering substances they engaged in up in those hills. Anyway it would begin with the gentle mommying of the baby lamb. By the end when they were out of their minds they would literally shred the poor thing with their bare hands. It was a practice of worship of Dyonisis however his name is spelled, and he would keep them all "entheos" or in an altered drunken stoned state outside their right minds. Once this rebellion would end, they would go back down to their homes and take up their subservient enslaved oppressed lives again and society would function greeks believed because women had got their rebellion out of their system till next year when they go back up the mountain.

Dyonisis, was a fairly interesting god when you study him from a more adult perspective and view point. Much more than simply a god of wine. He seems to be a god of almost dark mind alteration. He inhabits a space where your mind doesn't belong to you anymore, it is not under your full control. Often, the maenads seem to be written of by modern writers including at times in Donna Tart's book as if they are almost vampiric, only they aren't vampires nor do they do the most fundimental parts of vampirism.... There was a scholar at Harvard, a professor, who used to make a very good case for Dyonisis, and Apollo, being the same god, just 2 different sides of that god like a coin. One was the bright happy sun god, the other the dark mind altering god. The god who brought out the darkest parts of yourself.... I don't know how much credibility his theory truly has, but I found it interesting. The play is rather dark and it deals with material I would say is more adult than for children. But to get the most out of Donna Tart's book, you really must understand these principles and what even happened and was going on for those who's heads you enter in this story. It is about some college kids who hold a Bachanal like the women of ancient greece. But something unexpected they hadn't planned for happened.... Because they ended up doing a Bachanal in the truest sense... Then comes all that follows.... It's impacts... Donna Tart's book is a mystery about a pair of murders. Except........ You go into it knowing excactly who did it. So to fully understand at least in part how it happened and why the concepts of ancient greek bachanal junk is necessary to have some loose understanding of. Because everything is built on top of one event and choice.

Thank you for explaining that! But what they did in the mountains is really scary and cruel. And i think if they know what happens to the lamb when they are so drunk i think they are still guilty that they kill it!! Because they know that will happen if they go there bc the dark god you mentioned will make you do that. If they describe it in the book super detailed i think i would throw up or it gets in your head!!! And i feel very sad for the lamb bc everybody allows that ritual but i think it is very cruel.

I know Apollo and that he was the sun god and he was on the side of Troy. But Achilles was NOT afraid of him and he captured Briseïs as a slave. I dont know if the name is the same in English but that is her name in Dutch. And when he captured her nobody did anything about it so it shows how the Greek think of women i think. They just allowed her as a slave and were arguing later about who is her boss and she has nothing to say about it. So i think what you said about women is true how Greeks think lowly about in that time.

Do they describe super detailed in The Secret History also cruel things that you feel sick like what you wrote about the Greek ritual that they do in the mountains or is it not mentioned in a very detailed way?

Is it scary and cruel? What happens to societies that don't permit people outlets when they are the most abused and unfree in society? Do you think people can hold it in forever? Is it even really them if their minds are no longer under their control due to the level of entheos they are? It is a very easy thing to look at societies of the past from the perspective of the present. In which yeh we might see cruelty there. Absolutely that is a fair modern view. But to judge a people with a very different set of principles and system of ethics than we have today and very different world than we have today and societal function and structure based on our ideals of the present might be a little unfair no? I am not saying it is or it isn't. I am just giving you a new idea to consider. For them, this was a sacred ritual and event. They weren't drunk. They were vessels for their god Bacchus.

In the book, they did their human best to avoid all other living beings. Unfortunately.... That effort was thwarted. What they ripped apart in those woods out of their minds full of the god Dyonisis, wasn't a lamb.

I tend to agree, that it is cruel. I feel for the lamb also. If your great society must torture a helpless lamb to death to function, then it's time for your society to change so that such behavior is no longer necessary to it's function. If you are going to take the life of an animal, and many people do who live the way I do, you have a duty to do it with as much compassion as humanly possible while causing it as little suffering as possible. Then you have to eat it. If you don't there was no reason to end it's life.

Apollo, was a sun god. People die every year from sun burns you know. Nature and light doesn't always mean good. Sometimes one finds far more goodness in the darkness. Are you familiar with the myth of Daphne and Apollo? As the story goes she rejected him, when he tried to rape her. He punished her for this ummm "offense" by turning her into a laurel tree. From which he took his laurel crown. Apollo, is associated with laurels. This myth seeks to explain how that came to be.

The point is, Dyonisis, and Apollo, were supposed to be polar opposites. 2 sides of one coin. One the light and one the dark and one the twice born. Which is a whole nother can of fish altogether.... And to be fair, while I have some education in the classics, I can think of far better people to explain about this to you. I don't feel entirely equal to the task. It was a long time ago that I studied these subjects.

Yes... Achilles, did not fear the sun God. Do you know why? Do you know what happened to the greeks who returned from Troy? Do you know how they were viewed by their own community after so long away doing horrific things to other people? They were not hailed as heroes. They were not the same people they were when they left.

To be fair.... Achilles, was trying to do her a favor. You see.... Agamemnon, was from a house cursed for generations, including his, called The House of Atreus, which is a whole nother insane classical greek rabbit hole to journey down. Bad things happen to the membhers of the house of Atreus. I don't think those in their orbit faired particularly well either.... But very good! And who was the patron God of Troy? Why did the giant wooden horse make such an impression on the trojans that they couldn't wait to end themselves by wheeling it through their gates and into their city?

The way the Greeks thought about women, wasn't isolated to just the greek society... Well ok it was. But in many ancient societies women were subjugated. That is just a historical fact. Women having basic rights is for the most part a rather modern thing. And some are still trying to strip us of the tools we need to remain independent. Even today. The study of women's history is amazingly fascinating. I hope you will spend some time on it. It is also frustrating because women are often a side note, or an after thought when we hear about them at all.

Honestly, I read it a while ago.... I remember some detail but I don't recall if it was excessively graphic. it wasn't an easy book to read. It was extremely long and highly in the head of one specific member of a group of college kids who in an effort to better understand what they were studying, did their best to avoid all living things and test out if it is even possible to have the experience described by ancient greeks as the result of a bachanal....Something went wrong. Then something else went wrong.... And then hard choices had to be made by the end of the book 3 people were dead. 1 by suicide, 2 throough murder, and a group of kids were destroyed for life, their goals and ambitions ruined, the one we are most experiencing living a sort of half life. It is truly a greek tragedy, set in Vermont at a liberal arts college with a very special Classics, department..... I don't think of this book as being entirely child or even very younger young adult friendly. It was an excellent book. And when you have the conceptual foundation to really follow and understand all it's levels it was fascinating. Impossible to pull away from.... But you would be better served with an adult version of The Iliad and the Odyssey. You would be better served reading first about greek mythology and philosophy and undestanding this part of the world and the time period for now. Then some day, when you are older, you may want to give this book a shot because at that point it will very very probably rock your world.

Thank you very much @Wildflower-Farm for your answer and explaining everything!! 🙏🙏 I dont know yet what i must answer completely. I looked online and i read that the dad of Daphne made her a tree to protect her from Apollo. And he did not really help her and rescue her from Apollo how she wanted it. But i will read the books that you said but in our library i think that they are in the adult books and not the children books. Because if you are under 18 we get a free library card and you can borrow all children books and you dont have to pay anything. So it is free to borrow them UNLESS you bring them back too late of course. But if books are for adults you cant borrow them for free bc they think that maybe you borrow them for your parents and if they want to get books they have to pay for an adult library card. But maybe i can look at school but now the Easter Holiday started for TWO weeks!!!! 🙂

And maybe you can get books that you like on King's Day because people sell their stuff on that day and you can buy books for 1 euro instead of 20 if you buy them on that day. And you can get books even for free at some train stations and closets in some places where you can leave your old books and you can take books in it that you like. But you have to be lucky that there is a book in it that you like. 🙄🙄

Today I will make the next questions for Part 2️⃣ if that is ok!! 😊😊😇

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ PART II

6: Do you like art? And if yes what kind of art? Which museum did you like the most that you visited? And do you like ballet?

I love art. I am very partial to painters of the renaisance. I also like some impressionism. I like art with a myth or literary inspiration. My favorite art museum? The Elizabeth Gardener Museum, here in Boston... This museum, has a very interesting story attached to it due to a very tragic event some time ago now in which, their security guards got taped up and thrown in the basement while some of the most important works of art were stolen, never to be seen again. A mystery that has not yet been solved. But if I had to guess.... It was prolly some arsehole in Charleston, cuz that seems to be the international capital city of bank robbers and other assorted criminals into theft. I also really love not an art museum though the natural history museum in Vienna, my favorite piece of art of all time might be the venus figurine they house there made during the second wave of human immigration into Europe. In the 1970s this work was explored by archaeology though I do believe it was found some time earlier. It was decided that it was evidence of a prehistoric Goddess. It sparked my interest in archaeology. Unfortunately what I learned studying archaeology, is that this finding was made based on where we were as a society rather than based on what the evidence supported. All she proves is a shared human culture along the danube. it is still possible she is a depiction of a prehistoric goddess of course, but there was nothing in the context of the find that proves it had that kind of significance or any significance at all so 😢 we can't know what she meant or symbolized to the people who made her. Another wonderful museum I love, is also here in Boston. The Museum Of Science which isn't an art museum but still is of great interest. I studied music for a time at the university level. i would argue music too is an art form. I have very eclectic tastes, Finnish metal such as Nightwish, through Celtic folk produced during the Jacobite era, some modern pop and rb and country music, folk, blue grass.... classic rock, classical music, some opera.... I am all over the musical map. I DO like dance, including ballet. Though I don't dance. It can be beautiful to watch ballet, as well as many other types of dance.

7: Who is your idol and why? And did you have other persons that you really looked up to a lot?

Hmmmm Tough question......Do I have an idol? Maybe not.... But there are many people I look up to and think highly of. Joel Salatin is an interesting guy and an amazing gardener which isn't to say I agree with him on everything he has ever said or done but when it comes to gardening he is miraculous. Ted Cairns creator of The Stone Camp in Pensylvania is an interesting environmentalist. Julia Butterfly Hill, Eleanor of Aquitaine I have always loved her. I also find I love many woman authors. Rachel Carson, Dorothy Garrod, Gertrude Caton Thompson, Margaret Meade, Goodall, Ruth Benedict and others.... Greta Thunberg, Marie Curie, Nellie Bly, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Jane Austen, Hedy Lamarr, Indira Ghandi, Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, Sally Ride, Amy Tan, honestly I could go on forever.

8: What is the best tip that EVER somebody gave to you? And what tip would you give yourself when you were very young?

Hmmm.... I don't think any one tip on it's own ever did much for me. But a few taken in conjunction with others has proved meaningful over the years. What tip would I give myself? Don't rush. It doesn't get easier only more complicated and there is no hurry. Enjoy being young. Explore with great care, not everyone and everything out there is safe.

9: If you have guests who come to eat in your home, what would be the nicest dish that you would make? And if you are on vacation or in another country: what kind of food do you like the most?

Let's see.... Best food.... Depends what they want to eat. There is always sourdough bread lying around this place. You can find a lot in the greenhouse or the garden to munch. I guess I would invite them to enjoy the freshness rather than any particular thing. I might invite them to Thanksgiving Dinner, and make a lot of traditional American foods if they are from another part of the world. Usually if I vacation I am headed to Finland to visit my inlaws. I like the moose stew there, can't deal with the reindeer.... They also have some wonderful rye bread. I am rather hard to feed. I have a number of allergies.

10: If you won a lottery of 10 million euros for a charity and YOU can choose which charity. Which do you choose?

I win a ton of money for charity..... I dunno, maybe some environmental cause or a cause that does something to provide food education and literacy to children. I think that there are really 4 all important causes right now. feeding the hungry, providing those in need with clean drinking water, cleaning up this deeply polluted planet, and providing education to as many as we humanly can. I support a few environmental causes already that focus on the ocean. I also support groups like Black Lives Matter, Unicef, The Red Cross.... etc....

Thank you very much again for the answers Amanda!! 🙂 I like that you make a lot of effort to give detailed and nice answers!! And you mention Amy Tan and my mom likes her books a LOTTT!! 😊😊 If anybody has a question or wants to write a comment you can do that here below! ⬇️⬇️ Thank you very much! 🙏🙏🥰🥰

Amy Tan, is brilliant. I like her work very much and think highly of her. I also like Lisa See, as well. The first book of hers that I read was about the island of Jeju, after the second world war and the Haenjo I hope I spelled that right apologies if I did not. So it was set in Korea, a bit after the war. I remember Korea, in the early 80s. 1982 actually, It was an interesting experience though the next person who pinched my cheek and shouted cute at me in korean might have gotten a kick in the groin.... The compliment was appreciated, the invasion of personal space and the pain of having my tiny little face ripped at by strangers not so much. To be fair to them, they had probably never seen an american baby before cuz in 1982 it was very rare still for western women to go to Korea and even rarer for them to bring their babies with them. But I remember passing by forests that were still not so tall and planted in rows. It felt like the twilight zone because here our forests tend to be wild places without order. I was 2. I didn't understand that those forests had only within a matter of years or within the last couple decades been replanted after being harvested by the invading Japanese. I just recall finding it strange as I had never seen anything like organized forests before. So, for me, reading Lisa See, is a bit like a trip home in part to my childhood home at the Commune. There is a lot in it I recognize as Korean culture had a great deal of ground at the commune.

Thank you very much @Wildflower-Farm!! 🙂 I forgot to add pictures about the answers above!! So this is what i found online of the Gardner Museum in Boston that you mentioned:

And these paintings were stolen:

And these are Amy Tan and Lisa See:

I just looked online for pictures of what Amanda @Wildflower-Farm mentioned and did not ask it first so i hope that they are good enough!! 😊😊

Anything you post is fine Yue_.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft there you are on the gardner museum theft. There was also a podcast about it... It wasn't very good and I forget what it was called but there is at least that one. Then.... There is a lot of stuff online about this theft and the efforts to solve it. Goddess, only knows if they ever will.... But I wish them the best of luck. It was a big deal when it happened. There is also a fictional book inspired or based on the theft by Barbara A. Shapiro. It wasn't half bad. (there is little in this world I have not read.)

The photos you posted appear to be of the interior and exterior of the art museum. The thieves went through a large percentage of the gallery to my understanding and stole works from a number of different areas. https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/08/20/lastseen-gardner-heist-missing-art that is the actual art stolen.

Some of Charleston's most prolific. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5bJEL5JmOE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurine venus figurine.


And going back further https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials on the history of Salem, a place I actually lived for a while.

Here on the history of my state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Massachusetts

Reenactment of the battle that used to wake me up in the morning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NSdWp_pjOE Down south they reenact the civil war. Here we reenact the revolution.... WHY americans LOVE to reenact battles that went badly for them I can't tell you. It never made much sense to me either. But, it is what we do. So you can see it for yourself.

There have been 2 tea parties in this country now. This one, the original https://www.americanacorner.com/blog/boston-tea-party?gad_source=2&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2ZfABhDBARIsAHFTxGwJGEhA_vkdshs72NCmlDUvbXOyP1PN7wAEdp0Jzf8FfAC_cue8Jr4aAhtrEALw_wcB
And the more recent one I commonly refer to as The Stupid Tea Party, made up of folks that have joined a cult and thrown away their functional common sense.

Any questions? Or is there anything about this area anyone would like to know more about? Because we also had the rise of the early Harvard men, who produced philosophers like Emerson who stole most of his philosophy from his philosopher wife. Thoreau over at Walden Pond about 30 minutes fromw here I am sitting, Louisa May Alcott, writer of Little Women, her worthless father Bronson, Longfellow, early scientists also from Harvard and many other very famous authors.

This region of the country has the longest history. It has been through a lot in what seems a short time to most Europeans.

Ooh! We also have a famous marathon here. Most of you or at least some of you may have heard of it??? The Boston Marathon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dupw2pH3oes Some of you may even know of some years ago when we had a tragic event when a couple of brothers bombed it? I was about 10-15 minutes from the bombing when it happened. They locked us all down for some serious time because of that. It was nice this time to be at some small distance from the bomb.... The previous time I was in such a situation I was unfortunately a lot closer and that was in London, when the IRA broke the cease fire.

Thank you very much Amanda @Wildflower-Farm!! 🙂 For anybody who visits this forum, we already did part 3 and you can read it here:

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ PART III

11: Do you have pets? Do you spend a lot of time with your pets and what are their names?

I live on a farm. So, yes! I DO have pets! About 30ish pets. My pets don't all have names. I have a whole bunch of un-named chickens. Then I have some with names such as William Wallace. The chickens have 2 jobs on the farm, clearing land of grass for garden space, and giving us eggs that we can eat. I have a horse named Pete. He is a 16.2 hand canadian warm blood. Pete, and I are frequently mocked when seen together. I am too small for him. Other equestians find it amusing, to see someone so little on such a huge animal. I am barely scraping 5'1 and a half. So he is 1.67 meters. While I am.... 1.52 meters tall plus some tiny amount for half an inch. I am sorry I am not good with the metric system. People find us funny cuz he is massive while I am short.

I keep several goats for dairy. Their names are Asstrid (yes spelled with 2 Ses. She bites literally which isn't common for goats. Usually they like to whack with their heads but not our Asstrid the asshole.... She bites people.... We also have Starry the goat who is very very sweet. and Stella, who is adorably gentle and shy.

Then I have a dog. A great Dane. 136 pounds and a bit over weight according to the vet. She has many names. But her official name is Pikku. Pikku, is a Finnish word. It means tiny or very small. Her name was a bit of a joke.... She has other names too nicknames. Bratticus, Bratticus Rex, The Kraken, Pikkunias, Missy Kuku, The Ku, Miss Ku, Good girl, and oh my god, don't eat that!!!!

12: What is your biggest fear? Are you afraid of some animals or for example heights?

Maybe cars? I hate cars. I won't drive one. My dad tried to teach me when I was a kid. I deliberately backed it up at 2 mph into the only thing in the empty parking lot an old telephone pole. After that I wasn't allowed to drive again thank god. Cars scare me so much. I was hit by one at age 5. So the idea of being responsible for a giant killing machine is rather unappealing. Always has been. It is on reason that even as most americans have love affairs with guns and keep them everywhere, I refuse to allow them on my property as a matter of personal policy. YUCH. Thanx, but nono, no murder machines for me thank you. My other major terror, is snakes. Yep, I live on a farm and work on a farm and I have a major snake phobia. Around here, we have 2 types of actually poisonous snakes, but you would have to go to the most remote of remote parts of the state to find them.... Or......... the crazy local government has recently relocated our rattle snakes, to a private island all their own. What a lovely gift to the Mafia. I can only imagine how they are enjoying that island.....

13: What is the most difficult thing that you have ever done? How did you do it and what do you think now about it?

The most difficult thing........ I don't know. I have done a bunch of very hard things. I learned to read though severely dyslexic, though the experts said there was just no way. Now I manage a book club. I learned enough German to be semi functional, though here dyslexics are exempt from learning a second language cuz it is just too hard for us. I also read music fluently. But easy none of it was. I survived getting hit by a car, no one has yet figured out quite how I achieved that. The doctor at the hospital refused to give me even a tylenol because he didn't want to have to charge my insurance when I was only going to die during the night. The next morning I told him he was a cruel and evil bitch. I was 5. My parents didn't even correct me. Normally using a word like that would have not ended well for me.... But under the circumstances well... Kinda true. What kind of evil person does nothing when a child is profoundly suffering? I lived in Austria for 4 years. It wasn't easy arriving in Vienna with no english for my husband's post doc. Then I went through major allergy issues upon returning to the USA due the off label chemicals in food here that I am deathly allergic to. Which lead to another majorly difficult thing, learning an entirely new way to live on the border of the middle of nowhere as a small farmer in order to feed myself food that wouldn't have me rushed to hospital and shot up with epi.... These were all very difficult things. I think the only reason I continue to live as I do and have learned to love it is because challenge might be the only thing I am able to understand, and living without it.... After everything.... I don't know any other way to live. I need it or I just don't feel like myself.

14: If you can spend a whole day free for yourself and you can do anything. What would you like to do?

A whole day free.... Hmmmm..... I feel like I am really doing what I would do with a whole day free every day. In the spring and summer I work a lot in the garden and when it is hot, I head for the pool across the barn yard to cool off. I eat healthy wholesome foods from high quality sources, spend time with animals, and manage to enjoy many hobbies. It just so happens that these things are also the things I live from. It wasn't always this way. The first few years here were very hard. I had never planned to live this way and I had to learn so much so suddenly and it was difficult. But now while there is always more to learn, I have a pretty good foundation and understanding which makes everything here a lot easier to manage.

15: What do you think of schools in your country now and of your time?

Welllllll.... I am dyslexic. So for me school was always a highly unpleasant place and a form of torture. Then school shootings began to become a thing in my last year or so of high school.... And these shootings have only become more frequent. Couple all that with the low quality education provided in schools to American students.... I am NOT a fan. I don't think I would send my child to school. I would home educate. Which IS legal here. Every state has different standards for it. My state probably has the highest standards for it. So I would meet those standards and educate my kid myself at home rather than send them to school.

I realize this is a controversial choice, but a few things to consider, if it is like me and has severe dyslexia, the classroom and method I used is no longer available anywhere in the state. But I know how to teach it because it is how I learned. Gun violence in schools is common here, while far less so in sane states like mine with gun laws, well, still, until I see gun laws as strict as Scandinavia's all over this country, no child of mine is going into a school. Here is where everyone brings up social education they can't get that outside school. They absolutely CAN. Dance classes, 4H, summer camp, local sports teams, community theater, homeschooler gatherings, music education choruses and other forms, etc.... I have actually given this a lot of thought... Because I can't disagree that social education is super important. I would feel very different about sending my kid to school in Europe. For example, Finland, I would have no problem at all with them attending school. But here schools don't educate very well and these days they aren't even safe. There is a great documentary on the failure of American education called Waiting For Superman.

Thank you very much again for the answers Amanda!! 🙂 And I am sorry that i ask so many long questions!!! But i like reading what you write and i will reply about it later of course or find nice pictures!! ✨🌸 If anybody has a question or wants to write a comment you can do that here below! ⬇️⬇️ Thank you very much! 🙏🙏🥰🥰

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ PART IV

16: If you go on vacation from your farm, what will you miss the most except your dog Pikku and the other animals? Do you sometimes also bring Pikku if you dont travel far? And how old is she?

If I could go on vacation from my farm... I rarely travel now that I live here. It is very hard finding someone to manage my food supply the way I would while I am gone. I also have trouble finding folks who know about caring for animals. If I want a vacation... I go to the very private, secluded, nudist beach behind the chicken coop. There is a pool to swim in. Usually I go after or while I garden when I need to cool off. I sit in the sun, munch maple flavored goat's milk ice cream, or sip iced herbal tea, eat a popsicle made from natural fruit juice and filled with berries I foraged from the woods. I bring out a book on forestry, skinny dip for a couple of hours enjoy my iced tea, lay in the sun, and read my book about managing the woods (forestry), or some other subject that is related to what I do with my life. Sometimes it is a book on gardening. Other times holistic goat or chicken care. Sometimes it is some new treatise of herbal medicine, or foraging methods, occasionally it is the monthly read for the book club I am a part of. Usually before I swim I spend some time with a net evicting frogs from the pool... Often I play music. I am answering a question NOT inviting anything icky. I live very close to nature. Somewhat isolated from other people. This closeness to nature and isolation, allows me to be rustic and natural in a way that I couldn't be in other places.

The only other place I go anymore is Finland every few years when someone gets married or something special is happening in my husband's family. He goes every year, I stay to run this place in his absence, because one of us really needs to be here just about all the time.

Farmers, don't get to take fancy vacations to exotic locations. I did most of my traveling when I was young and then I went all over. Now I am fairly stationary. I have to be to live where I do the way I have to live due to my allergies to the off label chemicals in food products.

What do I miss most when I travel? I miss nature. I miss feeling close to the forest. I miss Pikku for sure.... She is my best friend, my only child, and my security against bears. I miss my goats and chickens. The sound of the rooster screaming his rage at the sun every morning.... I miss collecting eggs, watering my plants time spent with all my friends that are not human or animal. I miss the sound of the trees in the wind. The honey bees over by their hives near the vegie garden..... The sound of the rain.... The smell of the ground under the forest trees.

Unfortunately, Pikku, is a deeply sensitive soul. She could never deal with a plane flight. But yes, often she hangs out with me on the nudist behind the chicken coop. She has a spot in the shade with a water dish where she watches squirrels. Pikku, is almost 7 years old.

17: Are you normally very positive or negative how you feel? And are you confident or insecure about most things? And do you think your character has changed a lot from when you were small?

Positive or negative? Interesting.... Depends on the issue. If the issue is an orange tub of lard claiming to be president, then I am fairly negative. If the issue is what might I find to eat in the woods today? I tend to be fairly positive. My security and confidence again depends on the issue. If you want me to do mathematics I am rather useless and so I have 0 confidence in myself. If you want me to discuss folklore and the meaning behind it, that I am secure in my ability to deal with. If you want me to get behind the wheel of the car, I am deeply insecure. If you want me to get on a horse and go jump fences, I am confident. So it depends on the issue. I think I am reasonably balanced.... Has my character changed a lot from when I was small? In some ways probably. What I wanted out of life has certainly changed... I have better judgement than I did when I was young. I can think and see around life's corners better now. But I think certain key elements of my character remain the same also.

18: What do you think is the best invention that was ever made? And what thing do you think should be invented still?

Best thing ever invented? I dunno, the goat milking stand? The chicken nesting box??? The garden spade shovel? No you know.... Maybe none of them. I am gonna go with the book. The book is the all time greatest invention. What do I think should still be invented? I dunno.... I am a farmer not an inventor.

19: What is your favourite season of the year and why?

Favorite season.... I don't have one. Here we have 5 seasons and I am not nutz about the one that happens twice. Mud season. The other 4, the standard, I love. The autumn is so beautiful with the leaves changing color, the spring I get to go outside start the garden and spring is so beautiful in this area and it seems to appear all at once rising out of the mud of mud season. Summer, is warm and beautiful. I work in the gardens harvest eat constantly, can some stuff, raid the woods for wild berries.... Sit in the sun enjoy BBQ out at my little nudist beach behind the chicken coop. The flowers are blooming and the wildflowers are glorious.I weed the garden a lot.... Then winter with the snow when I go in and bake constantly and craft more than I do most of the rest of the year, read more, and hang out by the wood stoves when not out managing the food growing in the greenhouse. Raiding the canned pantry for the apple pie filler I put up back in the fall..... A good book a cup of tea, reading about a new project to start here on the farm in the spring. I love the 4 seasons but the mud season is a drag.

20: What things are the highest on your bucket list of things that you still want to do somewhere in your life?

Only 1 thing is outstanding in my life. Raising a child. Beyond that I truly feel like I have more than exhausted my bucket list. Now I want to teach someone small how to eat the garden and wander the woods. I want to teach them to play with Pikku, and to ride a pony. I want to share what I know of the natural world with them. I want to teach them to read and write. I want to support their exploration of everything..... I want to watch them grow and learn to set boundaries, and to explore on their own. I want to welcome them home for the holidays when they are older, and wrap up presents for them when they are still little. I want to sing them songs till they fall asleep, and help them collect chicken eggs from the coop in the morning. I want to watch them discover literature.... And figure out what they want to do with their life. I have had an amazingly lucky life in so very many ways. I feel truly gifted. But the one thing I have always wanted to do and have never managed yet, is to raise a child of my own. Adopted would be fine too. My own childhood, was not always happy, there was tragedy in it and a lot of pain at certain points. I want to see the world through eyes that still look at everything with awe. I want to get asked why over and over for hours. I want to experience some of the unhappy times through the eyes of a joyful child instead of through the memories of a miserable one. Which may be somewhat selfish.... I want to give the world a gift, a person, who will grow up to be amazing doing something in their own small way to benefit the world.

And bonus question: can we ask more questions in the future? 😃

Yes you can ask me just about anything you want any time you want. But certain seasons are busier here than others. So sometimes you may have to wait for an answer a bit. 🙂 But you will get one!

Thank you very much for this interview Amanda!!!!! 🤗🤗🙏🙏🙏 I hope that you also liked it!! 🙂 And later i will still post some nice pictures about the answers!! 📸✅✅ If anybody has a question or wants to write a comment you can do that here below! ⬇️⬇️ Thank you very much! 🙏🙏🥰🥰