Food & Water

A chicken coop for a small flock

by

A backyard henhouse for only a dozen or so chickens year-round should be commodious, a minimum of around 5 square feet of floor space per hen, which is much more than a commercial poultryman can afford. My henhouse design, based on what I’ve learned so far by building three coops of my own, differs from the standard designs in a few other ways, which you might find interesting to think about when building your own.

A nutting expedition

by

Those of us lucky enough to have grown up on self-subsistent farms were not surprised to learn in our schooling years that the literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was full of references to “nutting expeditions.” That might seem a strange phrase for the very pleasant pastime of going to the fields and woods to gather nuts in the autumn but the Victorians knew that “expedition” is exactly the right word. One does not simply pick up nuts from under trees. That is a small part of a grand adventure of discovery, especially for hickory nuts, my very favorite of all wild foods

In defense of the family farm

by

I have in mind… the one example known to me of an American community of small family farmers who have not only survived but thrived during some very difficult years: I mean the Amish. I do not recommend, of course, that all farmers should become Amish, nor do I want to suggest that the Amish are perfect people or that their way of life is perfect. What I want to recommend are some Amish principles