Randy brought home this find for $1.00! I own this bbok. I've owned this book since I was a young girl of 13. It was one of those important books of my youth. In fact it is because of this very book that I wanted to be a farmer. This is a feminist book on farming. It is filled with beautiful drawings, photos , quotes, stories poetry...and of course great farming knowledge. It's about being a farmer and the experience of it as a woman. This book was part of the back-to-the-land movement and if you were living in Vermont going to weaving school...it was on the shelf down at the Food Co-op. I have a handful of books that fit that category of ....transformative, memorable, sigh worthy, welling up inside. A few of those other books were Helen & Scott Nearings books, Annie Dillards Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Walden of course, Woodswoman by Anne LaBastille....how many hours did I make secret drawings of cabins and plot my escape to the wilderness. My life has alot of those elements in it now....but, that's a post for another day.
So, on this dreary Tuesday afternoon...I am sharing a few photos from this favorite book of mine. If you can find one and you love farming, gardening, story and poetry...and importantly feminist ideals...search around for this book...you will love it.
I know alot of you are either hoping for chickens this year or already have them. We were planning on getting chickens again. We had them for maybe 6 years. We live on the edge of a huge forest and too many predators did them in time and time again. It's not looking like we're going to get it together with everything that's going on. Besides...in my ideal world I am eating vegan...and why have chickens, work and expense if they are not what I will be eating? This is a cool drawing of a chicken house. I have to admit though....the down and dirty side of me loves this...but, the lover of pretty and vintage also loves this chicken house....yea, yea I'm embarassed to reveal this to my herbalist and farmer friends...it's my little secret! But, wouldn't you like this if you could have it?!
Recycle...it's the best use right? Start collecting a pile of "junk" and soon enough you'll have all the materials you need. My husband is an expert at this. If you go down to our local flea market on Sunday mornings...you will find a whole pile of folks just like us...collectors. We rationalize it really well don't we? If you have a pile growing somewhere on your property...just tell people you're collecting stuff for your next chicken house or outbuilding artist studio...it sounds so much better!
Elegy for the Bees...it's magical. This is one of my favorite pages in the book. It's strange to read this passage now 35 years later. The bees weren't in danger then....the last lines of the elegy says...
"No, my grief is not for that. It is the bees, the beautiful determined bees that sacrifice to me and the bear."
So many things I want you to read from the book! This little poem closes the book...
Sometimes in my dreams
I still see
my Kentucky grandmother
thin, strong and hungry
holding her egg money
out to me
saying
buy land, Mary,
buy land,
buy land while it lasts
they stopped making it.
