Raccoon Recipes, Distributism, Chelsea Green Books, and Hard Cider

On a Sunday afternoon, if I chanced to be at home, I heard the cronching of the snow made by the step of a long-headed farmer, who from far through the woods sought my house, to have a social "crack"; one of the few of his vocation who are "men on their farms";who donned a frock instead of a professor's gown, and is as ready to extract the moral out of church or state as to haul a load of manure from his barn-yard. We talked of rude and simple times, when men sat about large fires in cold, bracing weather, with clear heads; and when other dessert failed, we tried our teeth on many a nut which wise squirrels have long since abandoned, for those which have the thickest shells are commonly empty. 

Henry Thoreau, Walden

Q. What do Raccoon Recipes, Distributism, Chelsea Green Books, and Hard Cider have in common?  
A. Christian Farm and Homestead Radio 

I am sometimes privileged to be a guest on this weekly show by Scott Terry. Scott is fun to talk to because he is like Thoreau's long headed farmer. He has that unique combination of being well grounded in real world practical skills (he is a full time dairyman, and was once a full time backcountry trapper in Alaska) but still extremely well read and a careful thinker.

Our last conversation covered everything in the title of this post block, plus we touched on Merle Haggard, the whiskey rebellion, the 19th Century Dutch Anti-Revolutionary Party, Ruger Firearms, coyote and bobcat trapping,  Henry VIII, and squirrel dogs!

And big city folk call us neanderthals, rednecks, rubes, and hillbillies?  I always smile inside when urbanites look down on country people as lacking sophistication. Real sophistication is complexity of thought and  a broad interest in the world around us.