Farm City

We had a two hour fog delay Thursday morning which allowed me to finish the book I've been reading, Farm City - The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter. It's a relatively new book, 2009, about a young couple who move into a pretty rundown area of Oakland, California. They live in the upstairs apartment on a dead end street with a weed infested vacant lot next to them. The author, Novella, and her boyfriend progress gradually towards becoming small scale urban farmers by first clearing the lot and planting a garden and then they add animals to the mix. They start with a few chickens and then add bees, turkeys, ducks, rabbits and eventually a couple of pigs.

It's an entertaining adventure that describes her neighbors that include Buddhists monks, a man living in a car that's missing it's wheels, and a Vietnamese couple among others. The property is close to an expressway and gunfire can be heard on a pretty regular basis. Towards the end of the book, a gentrification starts to close in on them and the vacant lot is put up for sale for the ridiculous sum of $488,000.

The book details the trials and tribulations of learning how to grow a decent garden and how to raise animals, including the process of turning protein on the hoof into protein on the plate. I enjoyed the book for a couple of reasons. First of all, I used to work in a neighborhood not too different from that. I had the luxury of leaving every day after work but I understood the dynamics of the area. So I have at least some appreciation for what they were doing. Secondly, I admire the effort they put into the farming operation and the learning curve required to pull the whole thing off. Plus, how many people would actually tackle buying and caring for a couple of Durocs? It really showed what could be done if you really wanted to grow your own food with a minimum of space. Before I moved here to the country, I lived only seven blocks from the town square but the house across the street had a building in back that at one time was home to a cow. That was long before I lived there but even so, it used to be fairly common place.

Lots of people are starting to do similar things and a few city ordinances have been modified to allow a few chickens in the backyard as long as there aren't any roosters crowing. There's really no reason not to do a little gardening or keep a few rabbits to supplement your food supply or just have a worthwhile hobby that will get you outside and moving a little. The Missus used to work for a county park and inner city kids would come there on school tours and for many of them, it was the first and maybe only time they'll ever see a pig. Everyone should know where pork chops come from.

It's a good read and if you click the link above it'll take you to Amazon where you can buy it for something like three bucks.

The weather is supposed to be warm this weekend, so I'm planning on getting outside and working up some of the garden myself. I've got my chicks ordered, so I need to get my brooder in shape for delivery in a month, also. I planted my tomato seeds, some acorns and a couple of magnolia seeds. I've tried before to get the magnolias to sprout but so far, no luck. Hopefully, something will happen this time.

Enjoy the weekend.