'A Slice of Organic Life' is a book to treasure
By Kathleen Grove Special to the Rappahannock News
This is eighth in an occasional series of reviews of books that may appeal to the Rappahannock reader. A Slice of Organic Life called my name when I saw it recently in the new book section of the Rappahannock County Public Library. Then I took it off the shelf and fell in love. I had to share it with you.
The book invites the reader to participate in the movement toward more environmentally friendly practices with gorgeous illustrations and easily read strategies. The editor, Sheherazade Goldsmith divides the articles of two to 28 pages into three sections: No Need for a Yard; Roof, Terrace, Patio, or Tiny Yard; and Yard, Community, Garden, or Field. Within these sections you can find descriptions of foraging for wild greens, choosing safe bath products for children, growing salad leaves in a window box, collecting and using rainwater efficiently, starting a worm composter, making freshly churned butter, keeping honey bees or ducks or chickens or goats or a milking cow or geese or pigs, and using a glut of tomatoes. And this is only a small sample.
Each article contains clearly written step-by-step procedures with accompanying photographs and diagrams. In addition, throughout the volume, full-page color photos of vegetables and animals and jams and cheeses and other organic products entice the reader’s eye. These pictures, suitable for framing, have led me to order the book for my own collection—finally, a picture book for adults.
The book ends with a directory of resources, organized by topic, with Web sites, companies and organizations that support the operations described in the earlier three sections. An index increases the volume’s usefulness.
Do I even need to tell you how “Rappahannock” this book is? Whether you are reading about something you already do (I enjoyed the descriptions and pictures of keeping chickens and goats, for example) or about something you’d like to do (I would like to eat my weeds) or something you’ve never considered before (plant and sow by the moon), you will enjoy the underlying principles, the content, and the beauty of A Slice of Organic Life.