Trauma FarmTrauma Farm
Brian Brett&;s farm on Salt Spring Island is affectionately known as Trauma Farm. There, he raises chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, and goats, tends an extensive orchard and vegetable garden, concocts fabulous meals from the bounties of the farm, and has various misadventures. This funny and thought-provoking memoir traces one day on Trauma Farm. In it, Brett explores the natural history of the small mixed farm, meditates on the perfection of the egg, offers critiques of factory farms and the slaughtering industry, muses on the uses and misuses of gates, and ponders the constant presence of death as he goes about the activities of farming — birthing lambs, contending with rats, helping an aged horse to his death. Underlain with deep knowledge of biology and botany, this erudite, witty, and passionate book is an unforgettable portrait of the issues all farms face in this age of industrialization and homogenization.
The acclaimed author transforms a single day on his small farm into a &;gorgeously thoughtful meditation on the natural world&; and our place in it (Vancouver Sun).
The acclaimed poet and author Brian Brett takes readers on an irreverent and illuminating journey through a day in the life of his small island farm in British Columbia, affectionately named Trauma Farm. With fascinating ruminations on everything from the natural history of farming to the horrors of industrial slaughterhouses, Brett&;s day of tending to his farm becomes a Joycean epic of agrarian life.
Brett moves from the tending of livestock, poultry, orchards, gardens, machinery, and fields to the social intricacies of rural communities and, finally, to an encounter with a magnificent deer in the silver moonlight of a magical field. Brett understands both tall tales and rigorous science as he explores the small mixed farm&;meditating on the perfection of the egg and the nature of soil while also offering a scathing critique of agribusiness.
Whether discussing the uses and misuses of gates, examining the energy of seeds, or bantering with his family, farm hands, and neighbors, Brett remains aware of the miracles of life, birth, and death that confront the rural world every day.
Trauma Farm was a 2009 book of the year in the Times Literary Supplement and the Globe & Mail, and winner of Writers&; Trust Canadian Non-Fiction Prize.
Brian Brett’s farm on Salt Spring Island is affectionately known as Trauma Farm. There, he raises chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, and goats, tends an extensive orchard and vegetable garden, concocts fabulous meals from the bounties of the farm, and has various misadventures. This funny and thought-provoking memoir traces one day on Trauma Farm. In it, Brett explores the natural history of the small mixed farm, meditates on the perfection of the egg, offers critiques of factory farms and the slaughtering industry, muses on the uses and misuses of gates, and ponders the constant presence of death as he goes about the activities of farming birthing lambs, contending with rats, helping an aged horse to his death. Underlain with deep knowledge of biology and botany, this erudite, witty, and passionate book is an unforgettable portrait of the issues all farms face in this age of industrialization and homogenization.
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- Vancouver [B.C.] : Greystone Books, 2009., Saint-Lazare, Quebec : Gibson Library Connections, 2010.
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