Farming in the shade

A year (or more) ago a customer/friend from the Sweetwater Market eagerly thrust a book into my hands. She said, "You will like this book. Here, read this chapter on beans." So, while I should have been paying attention to my customers, I was surreptitiously devouring Chapter 9, titled "How to Live Well." I was hooked both by the writing style and the author's approach to cooking. I have assembled meals (for better or worse) for most of my adult life. But you could hardly call it cooking. Growing up I spurned my mother's offers to teach me the ways of the kitchen. (Sorry, Mom. I really was a pain.) And that lack, along with my careful approach to most of life, has made me stay in the shallow part of the pool--the place with predictable results. 1 cup of this + 1 pinch of that = something that would fill bellies. I came home from market that day and placed the book on my  PaperBack Swap  wish list. I use PaperBack Swap as a way to slow down my acquisiti...

I'd like to recommend a book that makes basic economics understandable. It's written in simple enough terms that children and their middle-aged parents both gain knowledge about the basics of our free enterprise system. Many homeschooling families use it, and it's part of Sonlight's curriculum (which is how I stumbled across it).   Whatever Happened to Penny Candy , by Richard Maybury, is written as a series of letters from an economist to his nephew, Chris. History, definitions, quotes and statistics are sprinkled liberally throughout, and hold the interest of the reader well. I close with this quote which seems appropriate in these times: "The public money of this country is the toil and labor of the people, who are under many uncommon difficulties and distresses at this time, so that all reasonable frugality ought to be observed." --John Adams, 1735-1826 American Revolutionary and 2nd President of the United States