Episode 15: Look, Ducks! (with Danielle Forrester)

I am absolutely delighted to get to introduce you this week to one of my favorite people in the whole world. There is no one, and I mean NO ONE, quite like Danielle Forrester. When I first really got to know her – I was 25, she was 22, and we were SO different. For example, she wore five coats of mascara and heels every day. She had many opinions about many things (that hasn’t changed), some of which I found absolutely appalling, because they were so clear-eyed, and I was still trying to be a grand Romantic about the world. It turns out that many of her notions were dead on, a fact I still resent a little.

Over the last fifteen years, she has become one of my dearest friends. She is one of the smartest, sharpest people I know, and by far the most competent. If she were ambitious, I’m certain she would be the CEO of some kind of multi-billion dollar corporate empire. But she’s content to be a digital content manager for a health system and live a kind of hermit life on her urban backyard farm in Texas, making paintings and soap and growing humongous cucumbers and figs and hydroponic lettuce, with her husband, her 130 lb dog, her parrot, her lizard, her cat, her thousands of gentle wasps, her assorted quail, her many food plants, and – perhaps most importantly – her 12 ducks.

We talk about how delightful her farm is, and also about what it’s like to raise animals for meat and slaughter them yourself, the ethics of being an omnivore. And of COURSE we talk a lot about the ducks, and how 12 ducks wandering into almost any situation will make it better.

Fair warning, for the first third of the conversation, Danielle is sitting outside, which means there is some ambient noise in the background – some barks, some quacks, passing cars blaring music. And also, some of the themes of this episode could be rough on gentle ears, so this may not be the best one for the littles. It doesn’t get too bad, but Danielle is a farmer, and she doesn’t shy away from issues of life and death.

But at heart, it is always beautiful and true. Enjoy.

Matthew, with Bertie and Janis.