Michael Perry, author of Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting, spoke at Barnes and Nobel to a small appreciative group in the lobby of the store. To start with, what’s not to like about a man who poses on the cover of his book holding a Barred Rock chicken? (My two roosters are both Barred Rocks, collectively named “The Inmates”)

Perry is the author of several magazine articles as well as Population:485 and Truck.  During his informal and warm chat, he shared personal stories and some readings from Coop. He also gave a shout out to Gene Logsdon’s books, praising All Flesh is Grass, which I mentioned here.

The striking thing about Perry is his candor and lack of proselytizing about any nuvo-rural movement.  He’s quick to share that this book is about his experiences, not a how-to for what readers should or should not do.  Although his story about “snot-rocket” — a phrased clipped from his text by a sensitive New York editor–might be considered how-to.

The writer’s life may seem glamorous, but to someone with a family and a small farm, I imagine being on the road, meeting strangers everyday in a new town is both thrilling and exhausting.  Perry did take the time to chat with each guest as he signed their books.  He and I swapped stories about ducks (“Do they put themselves in each night like chickens?”) and pheasants  (a neighbor of Perry’s raises them and a few manage to get lose each year) and the importance of starting small  (not trying to do everything at once).  He and his wife have 43 acres, which he shares is about 42 and a half too much, but he’s clearly proud of what he and his family are tyring to do.

In his forward to Coop, Perry shares:

I am grateful for anyone who reads my writing, even–or especially–with a critical eye, and one phrase never suffers from repetition:  Thank you, reader.

via Obamas Prepare to Plant White House Vegetable Garden – NYTimes.com.

a growing group of Americans who are finding it cathartic to unplug from the digital grid, at least temporarily. While there is no exact data to track how many people are forming knitting groups, hosting house concerts, or organizing family game nights, it is possible to connect the dots between the rising price of entertainment and the rising sales of board games and craft supplies.

Although the rules governing organic food require health inspections and pest-management plans, organic certification technically has nothing to do with food safety.

via The ‘Organic’ Stamp – Does It Mean That Food Is Safer? – NYTimes.com.

Be sure to listen the “Backstory”  Multimedia audio link that accompanies this story.

City Folk Flock To Raise Small Livestock At Home : NPR.

If you wonder how to do this and keep the neighbors content, consider this:

But backyard farmers seem to have one ace in the hole for answering any local objections: bribery. Plenty of Brad’s eggs, for example, end up on his neighbors’ breakfast plates.

“I ask them every now and then if it’s bothering them and they say, ‘Oh no, it doesn’t bother us at all and besides, you wouldn’t mess with the one that feeds ya,” Brad says.

“One of the biggest environmentally friendly trends we’re seeing is the use of local materials,” said Dale Mulfinger, an adjunct professor of architecture at the University of Minnesota and the author of “Cabinology: A Handbook to Your Private Hideaway.” “Once you start shipping things long distance, that’s not so friendly — there’s the cost of shipping as well as the fuel costs.”

A Cabin Is Not a Shack in the New Rustic Culture – NYTimes.com.

The story does capture one essence of smaller living:

By sizing down, he says he’s living on a total of $15,000 a year. He doesn’t have to worry about not making a mortgage payment and gets to work a job that he enjoys.

“Living in a small house has allowed me to do what I love doing, which is designing more small houses,” he says.

He, too, has purged junk and other items, donating most of it to the Salvation Army and to friends. “It does feel good,” he says. “I don’t miss the extra books, the extra clothes I never wore.”

If d-i-y (do it yourself) is n-4-u (not for you), a pre-fabricated shed can be an attractive way to live small or build on to your space.

Modern Shed, based out of Washington and featured in Sunset magazine and other media outlets has sheds ranging in concept and size from garden sheds to dwellings.

By coincidence or editing, two articles were forwarded from readers this week about smaller living and both, are from the New York Times.

One article by Michael Cannell of the Times says:

For certain buyers, the shed may be an outlet for baby boomer remorse. Encumbered by mortgages and 5,000-square-foot homes, some Americans of means are looking for ways to reconnect with lost values of simplicity, sustainability and forthrightness — values that seem to be embodied by the sheds’ basic materials and designs.

Parallel to Cannells article in the same week by Steven Kurutz, who quotes our neighbor in to the east in Iowa CIty, Gregory Paul Johnson:

Gregory Paul Johnson, a founder of the Small House Society in Iowa City, said that the notion of very small houses becoming popular was “an absurdity” five years ago. “But there are so many powerful forces at work right now,” he added, “like rising energy costs and the mortgage crisis. I think people want small homes because they cost less to purchase, maintain, heat.”

Some shed resources from Amazon – for both people and animals:

“Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways: Big Ideas for Small Backyard Destinations” (Debra Prinzing)

Times writer  Davey, shares:

“But the tale of the disappearing barn, a building whose purpose shifted, then faded away, tells a bigger story too, of how farming itself, a staple in this state then and now, has changed markedly since those writers drove through.”

It is easy to be swept in a nostalgia for older times. It is clearly true that rural life has changed.  The article also shares  some of the comparisons of ag life in Iowa from the ’30′s to today.  The WPA guide suggests Iowa had 221,986 farms in the 1930′s.  The Times articles quotes current USDA figures as  88,400 farms in Iowa today.  This suggests the average size of a farm has grown from 151 acres to 356 acres.

If farming has changed, has farm life changed?  The business of agriculture  is changing. Farm life may be changing less so.   The common descriptors of rural life — the enigmatic quieter, slower, peaceful time, still exits in rural living.

So we’re left with some memories, some remnants of the past, for example, fewer than 50,000 barns.

But maybe that’s okay.  Prior to settlement of the wild prairie and its conversion to farmland, their was a natural process that aided the tall grasses of the prairie like Big Bluestem and Little bluestem.  Wildfire, often started by lightening, would occasionally sweep through the open priarie, scorching most everything in its path, and leaving smaller numbers of visible plants, and a few remnants of once mighty trees.

And in the next season, the new growth would be stronger than the original.

Today’s  small farm dwellers may be  that new season of growth.

It’s blogged here at Jetson Green, and even moleskinerie.com.  Elizabeth Turnbull’s reported $11,000,  144 square foot (plus loft) tiny house has about 12,600 hits on Google’s search engine when searching +tiny +house +student +turnbull.

According to the Hartford Courant

Exactly where she will place the Tiny House in New Haven is not determined, but Turnbull is talking with the city and the university about suitable sites. Turnbull said she is optimistic she’ll find a spot that is safe and convenient.

The takeaway for HobbyFarmLiving is it is possible to have safe, green, sustainable shelter on your beginning or existing property.