Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
Chicken Dance 💃 and House: Rural Aid Farm Army helps Trundle and learns a thing or two
Chicken House has snapped up rights to The House on Hoarder Hill by debut writing duo Mikki Lish and Kelly Ngai, in a deal done between Chicken House publisher Barry Cunningham and Oliver Latsch of LatschLit. Chicken House snaps debut Lish and Ngai If you grew up reading storybooks about small family farms stocked with ducks and pigs and lambs and loyal sheepdogs, the documentary "The Biggest Little Farm" will probably make you happy. Its main characters (one of whom is also the filmmaker) left urban life and got into farming because they'd spent their entire lives carrying around those kinds of nostalgic images in their heads. The reality of farming proves to be a lot less rosy, of course—a fact telegraphed in the movie's ominous flash-forward opening, which heralds a Biblically-scaled natural disaster that the farmers will have to survive somehow.
But all in all, this is a very likable, if sometimes a bit too polished and vague, exercise in environmental philosophy and rural nostalgia, about a couple of well-off, upper-middle-class professionals (respectively, a documentary filmmaker and a chef and organic food blogger) who decide to chuck it all and go back to the land, conquer adversity, and do pretty well for themselves, all things considered.
The Biggest Little Farm
Apricot Lane Farms, which is located in Moorpark, California, is a Nuevo-old fashioned farm, predicated on the idea that biodiversity is the best and most moral strategy for raising crops and livestock. The website says the farm uses "regenerative soil methods" that make food taste better, and that the entire space is "a micro-ecosystem managed through methods best described as biomimicry, mimicking the biological balance found in our earth’s ecosystem that allows for a less destructive and healthier farm." Some of the details about how, exactly, John and Molly Chester made this farm a reality feel like they might've made for an interesting movie in themselves, albeit one that would have spoiled the fairy tale nature of the origin story presented here.
Supposedly the Chesters got the idea to move to a farm because a dog they'd adopted, Todd, was so badly behaved that their landlord evicted them from their apartment. Not many of us can afford to just pick up and move on short notice to give a better home to a dog, much less to a 240+ acre farm that's been envisioned as a self-contained ecosystem experiment. Livestock, seed, labor and equipment are all expensive, and aside from a fleeting reference to "some investors who saw this old way of farming as the future," there are no details about how they made all this happen, only that they did. The adorable animated interludes; Jeff Beal's Aaron Copland-esque, Americana-saturated score; John Chester's "And then I learned..." narration, and the many lyrical images of the Chesters and their employee backlit by honeyed sunlight, are all a bit much at times: more selling than telling.
But once the Chesters get settled in and realize just how many moving pieces there are on even a small farm, the movie starts to feel more grounded and transparent. The farmers are repeatedly required to figure out solutions to urgent, everyday problems, such as how to stop snails from infesting their lemon trees, how to keep coyotes from killing their ducks without having to kill the coyotes, too, and how to get an orphaned lamb to adulthood without having to put it down prematurely. "The Biggest Little Farm" is most fascinating as an account of people who made a dream come true, then realized that keeping it alive is hard, often heartbreaking work.
Rural Aid's Farm Army of volunteers (usually between 50 – 100) will also spend a week in the town undertaking a range of infrastructure projects which ... Do you have a long term plan for your town, do you have a vision?
As the worst drought in history continues to take its toll, Rural Aid is launching a campaign aimed at providing 10 country towns impacted by drought, with a makeover.
Established within Rural Aid’s ongoing Sustainable Community program, the 10 Towns will receive a minimum of $100,000 each over five years.
Working with town leaders the money will be spent developing plans, through facilitated workshops, to support the long-term sustainability of the town and local community. Rural Aid will partner with experts in rural/regional town renewal who will work with town leaders to develop the long-term renewal strategy.
Rural Aid’s Farm Army of volunteers (usually between 50 – 100) will also spend a week in the town undertaking a range of infrastructure projects which town leaders identify as important to the town and community.
To help us select your town as one of these 10 towns please complete the form below so our team can review your application.
Rural Aid's Farm Army of volunteers (usually between 50 - 100) will also spend a week in the town ... process will include an evaluation and assessment of the towns vision and leadership capability.
NSW: Debt-crippled farmers closely watching the political debate on a plan to help settle drought debt. ... Barnaby's billion-dollar vision for farm rescue package ... He said the drought was devastating the whole economies of towns in the New ... Inverell stock agent Scott Bremner said the drought situation in the region was ...
Part of a joint initiative, the European Commission and the EIB aim to facilitate access to funding for ... for young farmers and start-ups will be used as interest rate subsidies and for technical assistance.
However, we depend on the daily decisions of millions of farmers across Europe to turn solutions into practice. .... international agreements. Innovative risk management tools will assist young farmers to develop.
