For day one of the week of Thanks-for-the-Earth-Giving (better name suggestions would be mightily appreciated), I thought I'd share some of my favorite farmporn. When their powers combine, these two farming blogs make me want to quit graduate school, buy some chickens, and move to the Carolinas. Oh, for a reduced carbon footprint and dirt under my nails. Enjoy.
Photo from Ashley's blog
First up, Ashley English's blog Small Measure. Ashley and her husband raise chickens, bees, and now a baby on a farm in North Carolina. Ashley has also written a series of gorgeous books which I deeply want. It would be weird to ask for Home Dairy or Keeping Bees for Christmas... wouldn't it?
Next, and fairly new to me, is Jenna Woginrich's Cold Antler Farm blog. Jenna also has some books which I want and have no use for, and she recently posted a thought-provoking article on why she decided to start eating meat again after a decade-long abstention (scroll down to Thursday, November 18, if you're interested). Basically, she argues that eating local, grass-fed, free-range meat is going to be the most effective way (more effective than vegetarianism) of sticking it to the factory farming industry. Interesting. Here's my trouble, though... I would love to have a farm with chickens and pigs and all sorts of living things, but I don't think I could ever have an animal butchered. Nope.
As a side note: If I seem more obsessed with animals than usual, it's because I'm deep in research for a paper on animals in early modern travel writing. It's good stuff.
