Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Books

At the library today, I picked up three more books to educate myself about the reality of moving out of the city.

The first book is Natural Beekeeping. After learning about the mysterious disappearance of bees and the suspicion that pesticides and herbicides might have something to do with it, coupled with my tastebuds' love of honey and a general fascination of bees, this seems a natural thing for me to look into.






The second book is called This Common Ground:Seasons on an Organic Farm, by Scott Chaskey. He is a farmer and a poet. I don't expect to glean a great deal of knowledge from the book, but when the introduction sounds like this, how could I resist?


"In the fields we select to grow annual crops, by late spring as the soil warms I am literally surrounded by seeds, both indigenous and introduced, seeds breaking open, searching for light and nutrients. I am often overwhelmed, not uncommon for a gardener, by the force of April, or May, or June- but year after year I turn to observe and admire the visitations of wind and water, the maturation of plants, the rebirth of seeds."

The third book: One Acre & Security: How to Live Off the Earth Without Ruining It.

Excerpt from the back cover: "...is a book for all those who have dreamed of living close to the earth- not in the wilderness, but on land within driving distance of the city or suburbs. It begins by explaining what sort of land to look for..."

As I stood in the library reading the back cover of this third book, no joke, my eyes teared up. Ridiculous, I know. But I guess that just goes to show where my heart is at the moment. That, or I didn't get enough sleep last night.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That last book could have been written about our one acre place here in Montana!.......Ma