Wednesday's achievement

I finally finished reading a book!   It only took me six weeks, too, for a 267 page book!  (Yes, that is sarcasm.)

And the summary--

Book #1 Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, by Novella Carpenter

An urbanized daughter of former hippies planted a community garden and then ventured into food animal production--all on an abandoned lot in Oakland that was up for sale to build high-rise condos. 

The book is divided into three sections--Turkey, Rabbit, Pig--as she takes on more complex challenges in the raising, killing, and eating of food animals.  The turkey section hurt my heart.  The rabbit section made me want to join the peace corp and go teach impoverished families to raise meat rabbits.  The pig section?  It made me feed weird.  I eat pork, you know--and her particular porkers had a happy, happy life on their way to death and dismemberment.  But killing and eating our fellow animals is not the stuff of which poetry is made...or should it be?

Her description of dumpster diving experiences are both skin-crawling icky and snicker-tickling funny.  The times when she lost animals nearly made me cry--don't read this if you don't want to feel the hurt.  The experiment where she ate only food she'd grown herself was contrived, a bit, but still so very worth the while.  And in the end, she found--

Not telling.  Read it yourself.

One-and-three-quarters thumbs up.  (On a scale of two.)

Notable quote:  "...when I considered my messy house; it was a sign of a busy, full life."  Does that apply to my messy house, too?