The Girl enjoyed her first session of 'Barn School' this morning. It seems that what we are paying handsomely for her to do is farm chores (mucking out and feeding animals) for three hours each day, thus saving the farm the trouble and expense of employing someone. It's fine by us, though, as she seemed to love every minute of it.
It's a very much nicer, more old-fashioned sort of farming than I've been reading about in a brilliant book, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. My friend had it with her yesterday at Jiminy Peak and I picked up it up to pass the time when I wasn't filing my knees - and got completely hooked.
It's a compelling horror story, made the more scary because it's true. It explains how the post-war US economy and population have become addicted to corn. There is corn-derived product in just about every processed food (all those mystery items in the lists of ingredients? They come from corn.) Corn is having a devastating effect on the environment not least because of all the fossil fuel (in making fertilizer, transportation and processing) involved in its production and use. And a devasting effect on the health of a large (in both senses) proportion of people here. And abroad.
Read the book - it'll make you shudder. You'll never eat the same again.
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