Serious Farm

Serious Farm
Author: Tim Egan
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2006-10-02
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0547562535

Farmer Fred never smiled much. “Farmin’ is serious business,” he’d say. “Nothin’ funny about corn.” And so life on his farm was pretty serious. None of the animals laughed or even smiled. But everyone has to laugh sometimes, including Farmer Fed. The animals try everything to get him to smile: dancing by the light of the moon in Farmer Fred’s clothes, singing chickens, sheep disguised in sunglasses and mustaches. Nothing works and finally the animals decide to leave Serious Farm in search of a more cheerful place to chuckle and graze. Will the animals find a livelier home, and will Farmer Fred ever lighten up?

The Dirty Life

The Dirty Life
Author: Kristin Kimball
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2011-04-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1416551611

After interviewing a young farmer, writer Kristen Kimball gave up her urban lifestyle to begin a farm with her interviewee near Lake Champlain in northern New York.

The Lean Farm

The Lean Farm
Author: Ben Hartman
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2015
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1603585923

A practical, systems-based approach for a more sustainable farming operation To many people today, using the words "factory" and "farm" in the same sentence is nothing short of sacrilege. In many cases, though, the same sound business practices apply whether you are producing cars or carrots. Author Ben Hartman and other young farmers are increasingly finding that incorporating the best new ideas from business into their farming can drastically cut their wastes and increase their profits, making their farms more environmentally and economically sustainable. By explaining the lean system for identifying and eliminating waste and introducing efficiency in every aspect of the farm operation, The Lean Farm makes the case that small-scale farming can be an attractive career option for young people who are interested in growing food for their community. Working smarter, not harder, also prevents the kind of burnout that start-up farmers often encounter in the face of long, hard, backbreaking labor. Lean principles grew out of the Japanese automotive industry, but they are now being followed on progressive farms around the world. Using examples from his own family's one-acre community-supported farm in Indiana, Hartman clearly instructs other small farmers in how to incorporate lean practices in each step of their production chain, from starting a farm and harvesting crops to training employees and selling goods. While the intended audience for this book is small-scale farmers who are part of the growing local food movement, Hartman's prescriptions for high-value, low-cost production apply to farms and businesses of almost any size or scale that hope to harness the power of lean in their production processes.

The Resilient Farm and Homestead

The Resilient Farm and Homestead
Author: Ben Falk
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2013
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1603584447

The Resilient Farm and Homestead is a manual for developing durable, beautiful, and highly functional human habitat systems fit to handle an age of rapid transition. Ben Falk is a land designer and site developer whose permaculture-research farm has drawn national attention. The site is a terraced paradise on a hillside in Vermont that would otherwise be overlooked by conventional farmers as unworthy farmland. Falk's wide array of fruit trees, rice paddies (relatively unheard of in the Northeast), ducks, nuts, and earth-inspired buildings is a hopeful image for the future of regenerative agriculture and modern homesteading. The book covers nearly every strategy Falk and his team have been testing at the Whole Systems Research Farm over the past decade, as well as experiments from other sites Falk has designed through his off-farm consulting business. The book includes detailed information on earthworks; gravity-fed water systems; species composition; the site-design process; site management; fuelwood hedge production and processing; human health and nutrient-dense production strategies; rapid topsoil formation and remineralization; agroforestry/silvopasture/grazing; ecosystem services, especially regarding flood mitigation; fertility management; human labor and social-systems aspects; tools/equipment/appropriate technology; and much more, complete with gorgeous photography and detailed design drawings. The Resilient Farm and Homestead is more than just a book of tricks and techniques for regenerative site development, but offers actual working results in living within complex farm-ecosystems based on research from the "great thinkers" in permaculture, and presents a viable home-scale model for an intentional food-producing ecosystem in cold climates, and beyond. Inspiring to would-be homesteaders everywhere, but especially for those who find themselves with "unlikely" farming land, Falk is an inspiration in what can be done by imitating natural systems, and making the most of what we have by re-imagining what's possible. A gorgeous case study for the homestead of the future.

The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm

The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm
Author: Daniel Mays
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020-11-10
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1635861896

No-till — a method of growing crops and providing pasture without disturbing the soil — has become an important alternative to standard farming practices. In this comprehensive guide to successful no-till vegetable farming for aspiring and beginning farmers, author Daniel Mays, owner and manager of an organic no-till farm in Maine, outlines the environmental, social, and economic benefits of this system. The methods described are designed for implementation at the human scale, relying primarily on human power, with minimal use of machinery. The book presents streamlined planning and record-keeping tools as well as marketing strategies, and outlines community engagement programs like CSA, food justice initiatives, and on-farm education.

Dispossession

Dispossession
Author: Pete Daniel
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2013-03-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1469602024

Between 1940 and 1974, the number of African American farmers fell from 681,790 to just 45,594--a drop of 93 percent. In his hard-hitting book, historian Pete Daniel analyzes this decline and chronicles black farmers' fierce struggles to remain on the land in the face of discrimination by bureaucrats in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He exposes the shameful fact that at the very moment civil rights laws promised to end discrimination, hundreds of thousands of black farmers lost their hold on the land as they were denied loans, information, and access to the programs essential to survival in a capital-intensive farm structure. More than a matter of neglect of these farmers and their rights, this "passive nullification" consisted of a blizzard of bureaucratic obfuscation, blatant acts of discrimination and cronyism, violence, and intimidation. Dispossession recovers a lost chapter of the black experience in the American South, presenting a counternarrative to the conventional story of the progress achieved by the civil rights movement.

Why I Write

Why I Write
Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Renard Press Ltd
Total Pages: 15
Release: 2021-01-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1913724263

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

Serious Fun

Serious Fun
Author: Paul Goldsmith
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2012-08-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1869799305

Biography of Alan Gibbs, one of New Zealand's most influential and controversial businessmen and Aquada amphibious car developer. When Sir Richard Branson drove the Aquada high speed amphibious car across the English Channel it was a watershed moment. At last, had the holy grail of amphibious transport been achieved? The developer of the car, New Zealander Alan Gibbs, has since gone on to unveil a range of amphibious vehicles, including the Quadski, Humdinga and Phibian. Businessman, inventor, merchant banker, philanthropist, art collector, adventurer and inveterate traveller, Gibbs’ life has been far from ordinary. The one-time socialist became a very active participant and free-market champion when New Zealand’s economy was transformed in the mid to late 1980s. These days he is also focussed on developing Gibbs Farm, his remarkable sculpture park on the Kaipara Harbour, in New Zealand. The Farm, which has works by Richard Serra, Bernar Venet, Anish Kapoor, Tony Oursler and Andy Goldsworthy, among others, is of international stature. Gibbs lives in London and has factories in the UK, Detroit and New Zealand. It’s a life, as biographer Paul Goldsmith engagingly conveys, that’s been a lot of serious fun.

Old MacDonald Had A Farm

Old MacDonald Had A Farm
Author: Gris Grimly
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2017-10-10
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1338184709

A wholly original take on this beloved American anthem from renowned watercolor master, Gris Grimly--with a surprise twist ending bound to delight! Celebrated creator Gris Grimly, widely known for his gothic style illustrations, turns over a new creative leaf in his glorious interpretation of this beloved preschool anthem. Inspired by his son's love for Old MacDonald and his own family's farming history, and with stunning, sweeping watercolor illustrations, and a surprise twist ending that kids will relish, Gris brings this beloved song to glorious new life. Young children will love reading and singing along as they join our nimble footed Farmer on his morning jaunt across the farmyard and he greets each of his farm animals and beckons them to join his parade. Little ones will delight when the parade culminates in an unexpected e twist ending as Farmer opens the big red barn doors...and GASP...there's a BEAR hidden inside! With a moving artists' note from Gris explaining the history of this song, and his personal connection to it, this delightful retelling has all the makings of a classic.

Serious Pig

Serious Pig
Author: John Thorne
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 530
Release: 1996
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0865475024

The Thornes grew up on Yankee cooking, and they were moved to find that culinary tradition alive in saltwater Maine. In "Here", the first section of the book, they renew their acquaintance with familiar dishes - lobster stew, baked beans, blueberry bread-and-butter pudding - in both Down East vernacular eating places and home kitchens. The second part of the book, "There", traces Thorne's love affair with the cooking - New Orleans Creole and bayou Cajun - of southern Louisiana. Although his visits there were all too brief, la cuisine de Louisiane has continued to enchant him, as has the experience of being a stranger in a strange land. Finally, in the third section, "Everywhere", Thorne takes the measure of an American cuisine that, more and more, is learning to survive without any real roots at all. He comes to terms with white bread and American cheese, explicates the erotics of the hamburger and the chocolate chip cookie, follows the evolution of the barbecue out of the decline of the pig, and examines the role of cornbread in the formation of the American character. Cooks will find fresh inspiration in the book's many detailed recipes, from home-fried potatoes, fresh pea pie, and Moosehead gingerbread to an amazing concatenation of rice-and-bean dishes that reach from the American South through the Caribbean and all the way back to Africa.