Farming (11)

Alan Beckwith's Homestead

By Evan Kahn on August 18, 2017

…Alan did everything himself: carpentry, plumbing, wiring (solar electricity and hydro), and developed his own water supply. He drives a tractor, maintains several miles of roads, makes beer and wine, and raises pigs and ducks. A lot of people have started homesteads since the 60’s, but seldom have they got as far along as this…

Categories: Carpentry, Farming, Food, Gardening, Homesteading  Tags: , , , , ,
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Hallig Home in Northern Germany

By Evan Kahn on April 18, 2017

Hallig Habel during “land unter,” a local term describing the flooding of the Halligs during storms when just the houses stick out of the water. Thirty years ago, when this picture was taken, the house was inhabited by a farmer. His sheep and cattle spent their nights in the lower story. In extreme storms, when the lower story was flooded, the farmer would bring his animals upstairs. Photo by Hans Joachim Kürtz

Categories: Barns, Farming, Homesteading  Tags: , ,
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Island Earth GMO Documentary

By Evan Kahn on September 22, 2016


Right now the islands of Hawaii are in a food fight of global consequence. Although Hawaii has a rich history as a self-sufficient agricultural society, Hawaiians now import 90% of their food. Hawaii is also ground zero for the world’s biotech companies, which capitalize on the tropical climate and lax environmental laws to test experimental GMO crops year-round.

Island Earth is a feature documentary depicting the struggles and triumphs of people fighting to take back their natural resources from corporations, while exploring what it will really take to “feed the world” through thought-provoking interviews with the world’s top biologists and farmers. By exposing the myth that industrial agriculture is the only way of producing food for our growing population, Island Earth shows how to take control of our food supply through local farming and native wisdoms…

Categories: Farming, Food, Gardening  Tags:
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Black-and-White Photos of '60s Back-to-Land Communes in New Mexico

By Lloyd Kahn on June 1, 2016
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No one captured the spirit and essence of the ’60s southwest American communes better than Irwin Klein. With a Leica, black and white film, and natural lighting, he created an authentic and artistic record of this unique and short-lived period of back-to-the-land ’60s idealism.

Poet Gary Snyder, in Earth House Hold, described the ’60s communards: “Men, women and children — all of whom together hoped to follow the timeless path of love and wisdom, in affectionate company with sky, wind, clouds, trees, waters, animals, and grasses — this is the drive.”

In this newly-published book, you can see the optimism, the earnestness, and yes, the impracticalities of these young, mostly urban people who left the cities for the harsh climate of the high desert of New Mexico. Irwin was a photographer who was obviously in tune with his subjects, and they with him, so you are getting an inside look at a period now lost in time, with these spare and insightful photos.

Categories: Farming, Gardening, Natural Building  Tags: , ,
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Lloyd Kahn Talks Shelter in Kirkcaldy

By Evan Kahn on May 11, 2016
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I have been looking forward to this for a while and it was not a disappointment! Lloyd Kahn is in the back of many self-builders’ cerebral toolboxes for his seminal works as Editor-in-Chief of Shelter Publications, California. His 1973 book Shelter is an incredibly detailed catalogue of building techniques through the ages, illustrated with the personal stories and evocative photos of small houses and cabins collected on his travels throughout the USA and Canada as well as Ireland and the UK…

Categories: Architecture, Carpentry, Farming, Gardening, Natural Building  Tags: ,
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