Stephanie Reighart

Where’d you go, winter?

I recently moved from one of my favorite places on earth (New Hampshire) to Colorado (also nice). My intention was to spend the next couple of months skiing and prepping for a Pacific Crest Trail hike, all the while enjoying the snow-covered mountains outside of Denver.

However, since leaving New Hampshire, it has snowed many feet of lovely white onto my former home and maybe a few inches in the Colorado mountains.

While the time spent at altitude will likely help me once hiking the PCT, in the meantime I just want some snow.

The forecast from NOAA says “Sure, here’s some snow. How’s an inch sound?” Continue reading →

Man-us Interruptus

In the last three days, I’ve been interrupted twice while working in public areas: Once in a public library and once in a hotel lobby. I’ve been trying to understand why these people think they can pull me from my work.

Here are some similarities between the interrupters: male, asked me if I was studying for a class, asked me what I was writing about, brought the conversation around to whether or not I was in a relationship, both complimented my looks.

These interruptions bothered me. This is not to say that the men were harmful, but their audacity and distraction was annoying. In my attempt to work outside the hotel room, either because Richard was sleeping or I thought a library would encourage work, I was stopped.

To be honest, I did not shut either man down and tell them to leave me alone. For better or worse, and, yes, in this case it was worse, I am not good at public confrontation. While I feel it was rude of those men to interrupt me, I feel it would have been equally rude of me to tell them to leave me alone – at least, bluntly. Continue reading →

The animals of Sweetland Farm

The sheep of Sweetland Farm gather in the field. Photo by Stephanie Reighart.

Livestock are a vital component of small farms. They allow the farmer to cultivate new crop fields by providing in-house fertilization; and, in the case of pigs, built in rototillers.

Sweetland Farm raises chickens for meat, swine and sheep. The chickens and sheep eat and poop their way around their given runs, leaving behind precious nutrients that will enrich the soil. The pigs do all that and also use their bulldozer-like noses to turnover the grass.

Farmer Norah sells the chickens, whole, from her farm stand on Route 132. The meat from the pigs and sheep is pre-ordered and butchered to order off-site. Continue reading →

Thunderdome and Journalism

Editor’s note: this post was written in April 2014, but not published until Sept. 2014.

This week, company I recently worked for announced it was cutting the ambitious project, Thunderdome.

Thunderdome was an attempt to rival the Associated Press, centralize national news efforts for the long list of local papers who are owned by Digital First Media and be an example to the industry on how to move a paper-centric news company into the digital future.

At least, that was my understanding as a newbie at one of the small, local affiliates. Continue reading →

On the train

I haven’t ridden a train in the United States before. In Europe and Asia, trains are the way to move, I found, so that was how I got between cities. Planes and cars are expensive and burdensome, even in the U.S., but you can move enormous amounts of stuff with them. I have to leave a lot of extra time with planes, and cars require responsibility and wakefulness. On a train, I can write, read, sleep. Someone else is driving. I can get up and walk, pee when I want or need (unlike on a plane when I need to pee as soon as the engines roar).

This train from Newark to Lancaster, Pa., is giving me a new view of the Mid-Atlantic corridor. When I drive this direction, I see the trees that line the highways and the cross sections of hillsides that were blasted out of the way. Because the train moves on ancient lines through urban centers, I see industrial parks, commerce, beautiful old buildings that were once town centers and into the backyards of the tracks’ neighbors. Continue reading →

Tales of a right-hand farmhand

Another beautiful day at Sweetland Farm. Photo by Stephanie Reighart.

It’s been three weeks since I started working for the lovely and talented Norah Lake as her right-hand farmhand at Sweetland Farm. In short, I’ve experienced, and (generally) recovered energies from, twice-weekly harvests, building an electric fence, slaughtering a meat-chicken flock, moving pigs and sheep to new pasture, second-cut hay bail chucking and so much weeding.

While I have enjoyed learning the varied tasks required of running a farm, I believe the best part to be the lack of walls, desk and florescent lighting. After spending three years surrounded by those things while learning to be a journalist, I am not sorry to be rid of them.

Continue reading →