farming
Recycled whirligigs remain a fixture in the Japanese countryside
A constant fixture of National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek’s journey through rural Japan was the whirligig, or as he called them, “seismic scarecrows.” Gardeners he spoke to use these contraptions to scare away crop pests like mice and foxes. Host Carolyn Beeler spoke with Salopek about the whirligigs, rural Japanese architectural aesthetics and how he got aboard a cargo ship to cross to North America.
Teatro Campesino
Luis Valdez has written and directed such films as “La Bamba” and “Zoot Suit” for Hollywood. But in the late 1960’s he didn’t even have a theater, just a flatbed truck, a few costumes and fake moustaches, and the drive to bring theater to Mexican-American laborers. Valdez founded Teatro Campesino — the Farmworkers Theater which […]
Special Guest: Verlyn Klinkenborg
Verlyn Klinkenborg is a writer and farmer. He grew up in Iowa on his family’s homestead and he lives today on a farm in upstate New York. He’s the author of The Rural Life and Making Hay. He’s a member of the New York Times editorial board his essays on rural life are featured regularly […]
Matt Moore
The unrelenting sprawl of tract houses and big box stores has made its way to Wadell, Arizona, outside of Phoenix, pushing out small farms. Matt Moore’s family has farmed there for decades, and before his farm becomes a subdivision, he decided to make art about it, by plowing the floor plans of tract houses into […]
