Your chief chicken mama returns

That's my title, and I'm cluckin' to it.

A little while ago, I changed the title in my Brunette Gardens email signature to chief chicken mama. Please feel free to email me at brunettegardens [at] gmail [dot] com (replace the bracketed text with the actual symbols). I’ll reply so you can see for yourself!

I think I kind of look like a chicken.

I’d love to hear from you via email or in the comments below, especially after my month-plus hiatus. I missed this Substack—particularly the interaction with you readers. Truth is, I couldn’t wait to get back!

I want to thank you for your patience. I realize there are a bazillion other Substacks (I can’t seem to track down the exact number) vying for your attention, so I appreciate you sticking with me through a very tough time.

As I mentioned in this announcement, my intent was to dig deep into neuroplasticity brain-retraining work, and it’s been… one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’ll get more into the details once I’m out of the forest and can see it for the trees. But the main point is that I’m getting better results on the Gupta Program than anything else I’ve tried over a lifetime of chasing cures. For those of you who likewise have battled autoimmune and sensitivity conditions, I recommend it highly.

To be clear about my hiatus: This wasn’t six weeks on vacation, by any means. Since I launched Brunette Gardens two years ago, its creation has happened on the margins around running my livelihood business, Brunette Games. That has meant writing in the wee hours (insomnia) and on evenings and weekends. That’s not sustainable, and I now realize it was part of the problem. So I had to stop in order to focus on healing, while maintaining my financial health as well.

I did manage to take four days off, though! With our US Independence Day holiday in the mix, that was five full days. We hosted my amazing stepson, Zander, during his cross-country move to San Diego, where he’ll be assuming his first official role as nuclear lab technician on board the USS Abraham Lincoln. He was a terrific sport, donning the uniform for a garden party celebrating mine and Anthony’s tenth wedding anniversary.

Photo credit: Olivia Johns.

And of course our small-scale city homesteading project continues apace, which is the subject of next week’s post.

The time away also gave me space to think about Brunette Gardens and its future. Obviously, I can’t keep up a high level of production as a sideline without cost to my health and well-being. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem… but here’s a solution.

I’m all in. You have me. For the next six months, I’m committed to seeing what we can do together when we focus on the mission:

To bring you stories about city homesteading on a quarter acre. I want to help you grow, prepare, and preserve your own food using ancestral methods and manners, no matter where you live or how old you are!

I’ve made more room for Brunette Gardens in the actual work week. Let me also officially clarify my intention.

Brunette Gardens is for people who…

• Want to learn how to grow as much food as you can with your limited time, space, budget, and energy level

• Are looking for stories of hope and resilience in hard times

• Would rather learn how to prepare and preserve food yourself than rely on “experts” and corporate elites for your sustenance

• Believe a healthy diet = plants grown organically + animals raised humanely

• Care about the land and its conservation and stewardship but reject climate-change greenwashing

Here’s what you won’t find:

x A fantasy model of homesteading that isn’t attainable by the average person.

x Ads that auto-play videos, pop up to annoy you, or obscure your reading.

x Posts sponsored by companies trying to sell products, though we sometimes include affiliate links. More about that here.

So, are you still with me? I’m trying to keep it real, as judging by what fans say, part of what draws you to Brunette Gardens is my authenticity! I appreciate that more than you can know. In the same spirit, here are the new subscription tiers.

Free subscribers get three posts per month: updates, recipes, tips, interviews, and more, delivered straight to your inbox for the first few Wednesdays.

Paying subscribers get:

✅ Weekly posts, including updates, recipes, tips, and interviews, as well as the fourth (and sometimes fifth!) Wednesday bonus post featuring farm tours, researched deep dives, and personal essays (for example, Merry Christmas from our city farmhouse).

✅ The full recipe archive in printable PDFs.

✅ Access to my Just Ask chat thread, where you can ask for and receive advice on any gardening/homesteading topic, any time.

✅ A chance to win free books.

Founding subscribers get:

✅ All of the above, my garden-planning and companion-planting guides, and a 1-1 video call with me!

When you pay to subscribe to Brunette Gardens, you’re honoring me and my guest authors for our research, image creation, and writing. And you’re acknowledging the years of time and effort we’ve put into cultivating our soil, as well as our talents.

You also help ensure I can remain independent, without any corporations, institutions, or non-profits dictating to me an editorial policy or influencing Brunette Gardens via advertiser threats or censorship.

Subscriptions cost just $5.99 per month, and you can cancel anytime.

My goal is to add 500 more subscribers by 2025. You can help—and earn a paid subscription for free—by simply forwarding Brunette Gardens stories to your friends. There’s even a leaderboard where you can check your progress.

What happens if we don’t add 500 more by next year? Then Brunette Gardens either goes away, or it shifts to hobby status, which will mean I publish far less, maybe monthly instead of weekly, and with less labor-intensive content. I’ve been a writer by trade for 30+ years, so this really is how I make my living. There’s no trust fund, no wealthy spouse (though certainly Anthony is rich in other ways), and no lottery winnings funding this effort.

Whatever happens, you and I can both handle it. I believe recovering pre-industrial ways of growing and eating food has value, but one thing I’m re-learning is to accept what I cannot change or control. Brunette Gardens’ ability to gain paid-subscriber traction might be one of those things.

Or maybe not. Five hundred new readers isn’t too tall an order… it’s just double the current signup pace. Let’s do it!!!

Thanks so much for your enthusiasm for backyard homesteading. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments sections in the months ahead.

You make my hay day!