The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter
An entertaining adventure in raising livestock in the inner city
This book tells two stories: Novella Carpenter’s education in urban farming and what it’s like living in an Oakland ghetto. The gardening focus is on raising animals, not vegetable gardening.
Carpenter and her boyfriend Bill move from Seattle to California and rent an apartment in the Oakland inner city amongst the homeless, the eccentric, the drug addicts, the poor. They choose their location because it is next to an abandoned lot they intend to turn into an urban garden.
The story opens with the arrival of some baby chickens, geese and ducks and ends with Carpenter receiving expert instruction by a local chef on the making of salumi from a pig she raised. On this journey Carpenter writes about acquiring bees, harvesting honey, caring for rabbits, turkey temperament, and killing these animals for dinner. We share the sadness over the senseless loss of lifestock from marauding dogs, the threatened loss of her garden to development, and the ultimate betrayal by a lousy butcher.
The characters that inhabit her neighborhood are fascinating and varied, and we come to enjoy the ghetto culture that sometimes threatens but demands compassion and courage from her as she ventures into this milieu in search of food for her charges.
Carpenter’s passion for more escalates to her acquisition of two pigs. She and her boyfriend find themselves exhausted after nightly raids of restaurant and grocery store dumpsters, and her neighbors aren’t too keen on the stench. But the payoff is exceptionally rewarding as she and her friends celebrate in feast the exquisite taste of the lives that were in her care.
This is a great book for all those frustrated city dwellers (like me) who dream of making their own salumi, eating fresh eggs or having fresh turkey raised with compassion for Thanksgiving. It is also eye opening on how much work and dedication it takes to be an urban farmer of livestock.
Buy Farm City from Amazon.
