Tag Archives: farming

Farming for xp and fields

Posted on June 16, 2023 by smellincoffee

More short rounds today, bringing together a lite SF title and a collection of Wendell Berry’s farming essays. First up is Craig Anderson’s Level Up, a title in the relatively new field of ‘litrpg’ in which video game elements are … Continue reading →

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The Dirty Life

Posted on June 13, 2023 by smellincoffee

The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love© 2011 Kristin Kimball287 pages When Kristin Kimball left her cozy confines in the big city to interview a passionate young farmer in the sticks, she had no idea her life … Continue reading →

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Infrastructure: A Field Guide

Posted on September 14, 2017 by smellincoffee

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape© 1999, 2014 Brian Hayes544 pages Here at last is a book for those of us who constantly gaze out the car window at the fixtures on utility poles, or drums mounted in … Continue reading →

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O Pioneers!

Posted on June 30, 2016 by smellincoffee

O Pioneers! © 1913 Willa Cather 230 pages The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. Hannover, Nebraska, is a frontier town on the brink of failing, a temporary camp upon a wild … Continue reading →

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Harvest of Rage

Posted on May 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City is Only the Beginning© 1997 Joel Dyer307 pages In the spring of 1996, the peace of Oklahoma City was shattered when a truck bomb ignited outside a federal office.  Nearly two hundred people were … Continue reading →

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Seeing like a State

Posted on October 9, 2014 by smellincoffee

Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed© 1999 James Scott464 pages             Seeing like a State scrutinizes the organizational approach of state governments and other large institutions from the … Continue reading →

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The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer

Posted on October 3, 2014 by smellincoffee

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer© 2010 Joel Salatin300 pages Joel Salatin is crazy and glad to be so;  in print and in media like Food, Inc and Fresh, he gleefully rejects what the late 20th century produced as conventional … Continue reading →

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I’ll Take My Stand

Posted on March 29, 2014 by smellincoffee

I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition © 1930 various authors. 410 pages  “There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called The Old South…Here in this pretty world Gallantry took its last bow…Here was the … Continue reading →

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Daily Life in Anglo-Saxon England

Posted on March 13, 2014 by smellincoffee

Daily Life in Anglo-Saxon England© 2008 Sally Crawford224 pages             Who were the Anglo-Saxons? For a people conquered in 1066, their culture seems strangely dominant;  the land the Normans conquered remains England, not Greater Normandy, and Norman French is only … Continue reading →

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dirt

Posted on March 7, 2014 by smellincoffee

dirt: the erosion of civilizations© 2007 Peter R. Montgomery295 pages             Civilizations rise or crumble on the soundness of their dirt, says David Montgomery. The life of a people is tied to the life of its soil, in its ability … Continue reading →

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