Kairos, Clocks & Motherly Love Mrs. Sarah Reardon Pope John Paul II was allegedly once asked what he did with his free time. As the story goes, he responded, “All my time is free.” His time was free for him to give away in the service of God and others, and that is what he […]| Hearth & Field
On Kids & Kids A Discussion With Mrs. Jamie Spiering Hearth & Field recently had the chance to catch up with Mrs. Jamie Spiering, a homesteading mother of ten who, with her family, raises crops and livestock on a small farm in the mountains of northern Virginia. While her goat cheese and sourdough are locally […]| Hearth & Field
The classical education movement, it may be observed, is enjoying something of a moment. It was not always so: for generations, the American educational establishment neglected liberal education (in favor of vocational training and STEM), and derided the western canon in the name of diversity and multi-culturalism. But recent years have seen that same establishment begin to collapse, like an octopus dragged to land, under its own bloated weight. With the corruption and incompetence of the est...| Hearth & Field
Praying With the Birds Miss Rachel Shrader I am convinced that every human being should have a hobby he’s completely fanatical about. A person needs a hobby that draws him totally outside himself, that commands his attention so thoroughly that he has no chance to slip into meditations on his own feelings, problems, and sorrows. […]| Hearth & Field
Dark Rye Poppyseed Sourdough Bread Skip the Chatter — Take Me to the Recipe Hearty but comforting, pronounced yet balanced, this rye sourdough will not disappoint. It may possibly even win young kids over to the pleasures of rye bread. (Possibly.) It is particularly nice served with soup (consider perhaps our Season Straddling Vegetable). But […]| Hearth & Field
Desert Sky Rose Carroll These weeks of parched and white-hot sky Have rolled in scorching, and rolled by And left the torrid air in turn For desert trees and leaves to burn. Spring greens held shortly; darker green There followed quickly where had been So briefly blossoms, now dried pod On pod adorned the ground. […]| Hearth & Field
Preserving an Inheritance Mr. Kirk Wareham The seasons are turning, as they always are, and I am hiking in the Catskill Mountains with my seven-year-old granddaughter. We are on official business, which is to say that we are performing trail maintenance for the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. Our job is to clear the trail […]| Hearth & Field
The opposite of chatting with an A.I. ghost is reading literature written in Latin. If the truth of this claim is not immediately obvious, dear reader, allow me to explain. It has to do with the purposes for which human beings use language.| Hearth & Field
Hearth & Field recently spoke with Mrs. Carla Hanson, a fiber artist and Texan. Mrs. Hanson, who is a mother of seven children, did not herself grow up knitting or weaving, but came to the craft as an adult. She tells us below about how she has found dyeing and spinning and weaving yarn, advising customers, and building craft-based friendships to be fulfilling ways to create beauty and to connect with other people and with the natural world.| Hearth & Field
Last year, I was at a dinner party where I was chatting with a stranger. I learned she was a professor at a nearby university. “And what do you do?” she asked politely. I unexpectedly froze — how should I describe how I spend my days? For many years I was a lawyer, but I don’t practice law anymore. “I’m home with the kids,” I said after a pause, but then wondered whether that was an accurate answer. First, we’re not actually home that much, but often rather at libr...| Hearth & Field
As we enter the year of Our Lord 2025, those educators still interested in the pursuit of wisdom may well sympathize with Tolkien’s bewildered hobbit: we may have at last reached the end of our world, and what comes next is anybody’s guess.| Hearth & Field
