Books, continued

The other great book I read recently was Farm City: The education of an urban farmer. My Seattle friend mentioned that she had heard an interview on the radio with a woman who was gardening and raising small livestock on vacant lots as a squatter. When I saw the book on the "New Arrivals" shelf of the library, it triggered the memory and I was intrigued.

The author, Novella Carpenter, rented an apartment in inner city Oakland that had a large vacant lot next to it. The book recounts her efforts to create a garden in that vacant lot. The garden at first included bees on the back deck and layers in a chicken coop (she calls these the "gate-way" urban farm animals, as in pot is a gate-way drug!). She then moves on to meat animals that she feeds by dumpster diving for restaurant waste in Oakland and Berkeley.

It was a fun read, because I could see myself and my own "farm fantasy," but Carpenter has it on steroids! It was also fun to read for the picture she painted of Oakland, both current and historical. She also tells the history of urban farming, both in general and in the local area. I was continually intrigued, too, by the picture of the neighborhood she lived in and how multidimensional it was--filled with crime and drugs, but also very much a neighborhood with a sense of community.