Jill Winger

Sometimes I feel like an orphan. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived away from my family since the tender age of eighteen. Maybe it’s because I live in a ranching community where “everyone else” lives on land homesteaded by their ancestors. Same last names on the mailboxes. Same brands on the cattle. Maybe it’s because so much of modern life is built around leaving—leaving for college, leaving for jobs, leaving for “more,” leaving ...Continue Reading

Something funny happens when you create online. You put bits and pieces of yourself out there—things you know are only bits and pieces. But over time, people start to assume those pieces are the whole story. It’s not their fault. It’s not your fault. It’s just the nature of the internet… and these weird little para-social relationships we create here. For a decade and a half, I’ve shared the homestead part of myself online. Not ...Continue Reading

Most budget stress doesn’t come from one huge expense. It comes from the slow drip of little things you didn’t mean to spend money on. The “oops, we’re out of that.” The “I forgot to thaw anything.” The “I swear I already bought canning lids…” The “we’ll deal with it tomorrow” food that quietly turns into compost. It’s not a character flaw. It’s not even necessarily a budgeting problem. It’s the busy tax. And when life is ...Continue Reading

  A row of towering steel silos stands in the center of our little town. They’re remnants of another era, when dry land wheat farming was a major industry here and farmers would truck their harvests to town. They’re empty now. The paint is peeling, the metal is rusting, and vultures like to sit on top and glare down at main street. It’s poetic, in a haunting sort of way, I guess. Sometimes I get so used to seeing ...Continue Reading

Once upon a time, we were close friends. We haven’t spoken in nearly thirty years. In fact, I’d nearly forgotten she existed. But one night I found myself scrolling through her social media, lingering longer than I meant to. And something in me paused. We hadn’t hung out since I was eleven or twelve, but I recognized her instantly. Not her face, necessarily—but her essence. Whimsical. Ethereal. Romantic.An Anne-of-Green-Gables sort ...Continue Reading