Can a "Hobby Farm" really be a hobby?

BOOK REVIEW--- "Trauma Farm" by Brian Brett. I bypassed this book on the shelves of the library a couple of times before I finally checked it out. The cover was intriguing, but then, you can hardly go wrong with the color red and a chicken. I wasn't sure I was all that interested in someone's take on 'hobby farming', since I knew that wasn't ever a route I was likely to persue myself. In the end, I decided I could at least get someone's take on the whole biz, if for no other reason but to feel like I at least had a sense of what it was all about.

Mr. Brett, living on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, is a poet by trade and an 'amateur' farmer by choice and inclination. He, along with his spouse, have 'farmed' in various capacities for about 18 years. Wise enough to recognize the certain curse of sure poverty that all small farmers struggle to hold at bay, he and his wife have paying jobs that help float their real love of the land and their livestock.

He's constructed the book in such a manner that he can parse the various chapters into the span of what he refers to as an "eighteen year long day". Thus, you are witness to the different modes of daily farm life and operation, and given a considered history of the various changes agriculture has gone through in the last couple of decades. Hardly a dry tome, with many a hilarious event blossoming out of unexpected circumstances, and a warm human history of not only his own family, but also of the community of islanders he shares the land with.

His obvious love for the land and all creatures shines throughout the book, without it being treacly sentimental. As he is wont to point out, the hard realities of death and life are placed in front of you every day, in addition to being lodged under one's fingernails, and tossed on the compost pile. He addresses all manner of farming issues, including "Big Agriculture", use of pesticides and genetic engineering of seedstock, boneheaded regulation from bureaucracies that are in thrall to the 'farming industry' titans, and the sad loss of much of the traditional 'folk wisdom' of farming due to the disappearance of small farms.

Despite the items I've listed above, the book is not a tale of woe, by any means. Mr. Brett has thought long and hard about this whole sphere, and put a lot of work in making sure his views had needed balance. For this reader, one of the things that I keep coming back to as I observe the everyday news is his observation that in farming, like much of the development of the human animal, we've become too clever by half, pointing out that historically we manage to develop increasingly clever tools at a pace that far outstrips the needed wisdom to properly wield them, or consider their ultimate impact on the environment, both natural and social.

I hope this is enough of a teaser to get you to read his book. I still don't have any desire to put in a huge garden, or get some chickens, but he has managed to at least convince me that my love of the land and my respect for the people who choose that life is not misplaced. Hmmm... I wonder if Wendell Berry knows this guy? (Four Stars)