Subtotal: $
Checkout
For centuries, Hudson Valley farmers have used the winter months to store seed, swap stories, and lay the groundwork for a bountiful growing season. On February 23rd, our local farming community and their supporters joined us at the Fox Hill Bruderhof for an evening with Joel Salatin, which included a screening of the new Wendell Berry film Look and See, and the launch of Water at the Roots, Plough’s new title by farmer-poet Philip Britts. Attendees enjoyed fresh artisan breads and produce from our farm and kitchen, connected with farmers and friends from the local area, and received a free pre-publication copy of the new book.
Watch Joel Salatin’s keynote speech to a packed house here:
Family farmer Joel Salatin has been hailed by the New York Times as “Virginia’s most multifaceted agrarian since Thomas Jefferson.” He and four generations of his family run Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, providing beef, pork, poultry, and forestry products to local families and restaurants.
Salatin’s books include Family Friendly Farming, Pastured Poultry Profits, Salad Bar Beef, You Can Farm, Holy Cows and Hog Heaven, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal, The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer, and The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs.
Wendell Berry, writer, poet, teacher, farmer, and outspoken citizen of an endangered world, gives us a compelling vision of the good and true life. The most powerful way to draw a portrait of such an accomplished thinker and artist is to attempt to get behind his eyes and to imagine the world as he sees it. Rather than train the lens on Berry himself, as would be an expected and more typical approach, the new film Look and See allows Berry, in a sense, to point the camera toward the stories and landscapes he would have us regard: the stories of small generational farmers in Henry County, Kentucky, as a way to better understand the struggles, hopes and vital importance of rural land-based communities.
Something of a British Wendell Berry, Philip Britts (1917–1949) was a soft-spoken West Country farmer, poet, activist, and mystic. Even as his country plunged headlong into a second world war, he sought a way of life where people could work together in harmony with nature and one another. He found an answer, though it would cost him his land and his life. Now for the first time in print, Water at the Roots: Poems and Insights of a Visionary Farmer distills the strength and power of his poetry, thoughts, and reflections on faith, farming, and a life lived in service to others.
