A freelance writer, Patrice specializes in the subjects of rural living, craft businesses, Dexter cattle, writing, homeschooling, parenting, and simplicity. Here is an exerpt from her website (www.patricelewis.com): "We do what I jokingly call the Three H’s: Homesteading, Homeschooling, and Home Business-ing. What this means is that we are striving to grow or raise our own food on our forty-acre farm in north Idaho; we are educating our own children; and we have a home craft business that has provided our income for the past fifteen years." "Our unique lifestyle has given me the interest and capacity to write on the above subjects with some degree of confidence." Patrice Lewis

Posts:

• PATRICE LEWIS"> Clueless in Seattle by PATRICE LEWIS,

  Recently, while turning some old bed sheets into new curtains, I got a call from my friend Janet.  We used to live near each other a long time ago, and have stayed in touch through multiple moves over the years.
  She now lives in Seattle, Washington.  I now live in Podunk, Idaho.  I think she’s nuts [...]

  26 Aug 2010 in Life/Living/People
• PATRICE LEWIS"> The Bare Necessities by PATRICE LEWIS,

  Recently we had a very exciting event happen right here in the backwoods of north Idaho.  We had a convention.
  Now those of you abiding in cities are doubtless saying, “Big whoop.  Conventions are a dime a dozen here.”
  Aaah, but this isn’t an ordinary convention.  It was a convention with a very specific dress code.  In [...]

  19 Aug 2010 in Life/Living/People
• PATRICE LEWIS"> Blender Dogs by PATRICE LEWIS,

  I like Big Dogs.
  Great big dogs. The bigger the better. Show me a Lab and I’ll want a Malamute. Show me a Malamute and I’ll want a Newfoundland. Show me a Newfoundland and I’ll want an Irish Wolfhound. Show me a Wolfhound and I’ll want an English Mastiff. I’m not sure there’s a breed bigger [...]

  12 Aug 2010 in Life/Living/People
• PATRICE LEWIS"> Dust to Dust by PATRICE LEWIS,

  Oh, you’re gonna love this.
  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – a bureau which, I suspect, has an average IQ somewhere around room temperature (that’s the “new” room temperature, officially lowered to save energy) – has proposed to introduce “stringent and unparalleled” regulation on one of the most dangerous, threatening, and onerous of rural byproducts.  Yes, [...]

  05 Aug 2010 in Government
• PATRICE LEWIS"> Armchair Quarterbacking by PATRICE LEWIS,

  I just returned from a week in the Big City, peddling our wares.  For purposes of illustration, our wares consist of a series of hardwood drinking tankards.  Like beer steins, made of wood.  (Hey, someone has to do it.)
  It was during the span of this four-day crafts fair that I once again encountered the ubiquitous [...]

  29 Jul 2010 in Life/Living/People
• Cheap Charlie by PATRICE LEWIS,

  Recently we got a call from an old friend (we’ll call him Charlie) who informed us he was ready to get out of the city, just as we did twenty years ago. He yearned for the simple life. He wanted to get closer to the land. To raise some livestock. To grow a garden. To breathe [...]

  20 Jul 2010 in Life/Living/People
• The (cough) Simple Life by PATRICE LEWIS,

  Remember that old game we all played in elementary school?  I think it was called “Association.”  I’ll say a word, and you say the first associated word that pops into your head.  Like this:
  Bacon.  Eggs.
  Mother.  Father.
  Near.  Far.
  Country living.  Simple life.
  Of all the hilariously funny misconceptions that exist about life in the country, one of the [...]

  14 Jul 2010 in Life/Living/People
• You Might Be a Redneck If… by PATRICE LEWIS,

  If there’s one thing most people don’t hesitate to do with country folks, it’s to poke fun at them. There’s just something about us that generates hilarity among the more metropolitan types. Frustratingly, there are few urban equivalents of redneck jokes. About the best I could find are such lame one-liners as: “You know you’re [...]

  30 Jun 2010 in Humor
• The Color of a Cow Running Away by PATRICE LEWIS,

  There’s a book I bought a few years ago called It Takes a Village Idiot (available at Amazon.com), and it chronicles the journey of a cynical columnist who moved from urban Manhattan to rural Upstate New York.
  The author’s wife worked in the garment district, where part of her job was to name the colors for [...]

  23 Jun 2010 in Life/Living/People
• Sex and the Country by PATRICE LEWIS,

  So I hear the movie version of Sex and the City was something of a financial flop.
  For those of you living under a rock, Sex and the City is a sitcom that features a lot of women. Having sex. In the city. The popularity of this concept proved so novel that they made it into [...]

  16 Jun 2010 in Entertainment
• Rural Chic by PATRICE LEWIS,

  My twelve-year-old daughter drew a cartoon last month, which I taped to our fridge. It features two cows staring at a young woman dressed like a Bratz doll, a lamentably common fashion statement among teens these days. The young woman is staring at the cows with avid curiosity. One cow leans over to the other [...]

  10 Jun 2010 in Life/Living/People
• Farming for Dummies by PATRICE LEWIS,

  So I hear FarmVille is coming to Yahoo.
  For those unfamiliar with FarmVille, it’s an online game that allows the user to “manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops and trees, and raising livestock.”  Since its launch in June 2009, FarmVille has become “the most popular game application on Facebook, with over [...]

  02 Jun 2010 in Life/Living/People
• Lambs to the Slaughter by Patrice Lewis,

  One of the most extraordinary things Progressives can do better than almost anyone else is deny reality even in the face of facts.
  Yet another study has emerged demonstrating the long-term negative effects of daycare on children. This is just one many studies demonstrating the same thing. Yet Progressive working women will deny the conclusions of [...]

  26 May 2010 in Family
• Welcome to Flyover Country,

  Thanks to the prevalence of talk radio and the widespread use of the internet, those of us with conservative viewpoints are no longer held hostage by the liberal mainstream media’s filtering and interpretation of news and issues.  Now we have an abundance of conservative talk show hosts, writers, columnists, and authors who grace our airwaves, [...]

  19 May 2010 in Life/Living/People
• Winning the Lottery by Patrice Lewis,

  Like most people, my husband and I often wish we had just a little more money than we currently have. Gosh, if we had more money we could…and here starts an endless list of projects. We could put in a windmill to power our well. We could install more secure fences to keep our livestock [...]

  19 May 2010 in Money savings
• Welcome to Flyover Country by Patrice Lewis,

  Thanks to the prevalence of talk radio and the widespread use of the internet, those of us with conservative viewpoints are no longer held hostage by the liberal mainstream media’s filtering and interpretation of news and issues. Now we have an abundance of conservative talk show hosts, writers, columnists, and authors who grace our [...]

  12 May 2010 in Life/Living/People