[Vision2020] Summer Reading Was:The little gray cells (are turningto mush)

[Bill London]

Good books  -- good idea....

here's one from me, a report written for the newsletter of the Moscow Food
Co-op.....BL

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Harvest: a year in the life of an organic farm

By Nicola Smith, with photographs by Geoff Hansen



            Harvest is an improbable book.  It's thick and heavy, weighted
by the slick paper commonly used in coffee table photo books.  About
one-fourth of the 274 pages are full-page photographs, so most of the book
is text.  That's an unusual ratio for a slick photo book.

            The topic is unlikely as well.  The entire book focuses on a
year of operations of the Fat Rooster Farm in South Royalton, Vermont, and
the lives of the family that lives there: Jennifer Megyesi and Kyle Jones,
and their four-year-old son Brad.

            Fat Rooster is a small organic farm, surviving by selling
vegetables, eggs, and meat raised carefully and methodically.

            This book could have been a sentimental stroll through the farm'
s flower-filled meadows, but instead is a realistic, honest, and
surprisingly intimate portrait of a well-educated and well-intentioned
couple who chose this organic path for all the right reasons.

            Life at the Fat Rooster is difficult.  The stress associated
with not enough money and too much work piles up as the year goes on.  Their
winter planning session finally devolves into a discussion of the d-word -
divorce.

            Throughout the book, Smith's prose draws the reader onward.
Even more than the photos, the words tell the story of their difficult lives
and difficult choices.  This is a fascinating book for anyone who cares
about organic agriculture, or really for anyone who eats.

You can get a copy at BookPeople or borrow one at the Moscow library.