An image of Barack Obama and John Edwards popped up on my screen and I sucked in my breath. Could it be? Did Obama announce that Edwards would be his running mate?
It took a moment for me to adjust to reality - the NYT headline announced only that Edwards endorsed Obama, and of course, […]

photo: Steve Ringman for The Seattle Times

I’ll stand with farmers (of the small and sustainable school) in almost any fight, but a recent dust-up – forgive me, but it this case it should really be a mud-up – in southwest Washington’s Lewis county has me puzzled.
Folks there are still recovering from early December floods. A […]

Perhaps we are now at the end of the year of the year. Too many writers recently have taken on one-year projects of deprivation or exploration and learned about themselves and the direction and purpose of their lives. Often the products were interesting, but the trope itself has become a bore.
Are food and farm […]

I live on an eensy city lot. The front yard contains little more than the steps to our door and a path to the back. The back isn’t a yard at all. Half of the space is filled with a deck, and the other half with a garage.
Still, I think I can farm here. The […]

Low Stress Food

I wrote yesterday that pre-slaughter stress in livestock impacts meat quality. Today, I received my Stockman Grassfarmer (why yes, I am a farm geek) and learned of a new book proposing that when we eat meat from stressed animals, we experience “second-hand stress.”
As antidote, the author of

Selling meat requires USDA inspection, both of the animals and the facility where they’re processed.
There’s an exemption to this requirement if instead of cuts of meat you’re selling live animals. In that case, you can custom slaughter for the buyer under state regs instead of federal ones.
The live animals slaughtered under this […]

Choosing traditional foods is part of the recent trend toward eating what the Ethicurean calls SOLE food — Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical.
Traditional foods include heritage breeds of livestock that are better suited to being raised the old-fashioned way (in open air, on pasture, eating foods appropriate to the species) than the ones bred […]

I found River Valley Ranch’s cheese disappointing. Pacific Northwest Cheese Project seems to disagree — I think.
The Project’s recent post focuses on the farm’s successes: attracting media and finding retailers. Not a lot on the cheese, at least how it tastes.
I really wanted to like it. I enjoy raw milk cheese, goat […]

The Unsettling of America
I am motivated to create this journal as a means of capturing ideas and making connections between them. Wendell Berry’s Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture is an apt starting place because it thoughtfully addresses many things I care about and coherently relates them. I begin with the hope that I can […]