Georgia Sheep

It's all well and good for a blog to be a kind of repository for major MEDIA stories touching on important environmental and agricultural matters. It's important even, when the nonstop cycle of news threatens to crush your attention span like a juggernaut. Doting is necessary. Forming a narrative and a sense of concentrated consciousness is indispensable.

But it's also easy. I don't like the idea of this blog as nothing more than a link parade to the Washington Post. My Protestant blood accuses me of laziness, while my political bones grind with impatience. What profit is another window to the calamitous world? I'm tired of pointing and drooling and sometimes shaking my fist at the thunderheads.

If there's no comfort in worry and outrage, there must be in alternative. I can echo complaints of the situation at hand, or I can work to achieve preferable agricultural, environmental, and economic systems within my small sphere of influence.

Think globally, act locally. I despise bumper commandments, but few of us can live in Eden. The rest must grow it around ourselves. My Eden begins today with sheep:

I learned about Shady Brook Sheep Farm after reading about farmer Jennif Chandler's possible deal with Athens-Clarke County for her sheep to eat the kudzu, privet and honeysuckle invading local parks. Then some friends from Flagpole shoveled home a truckload of manure for their winter gardens. I hope to have an interview with Jennif soon. Until then, check out her Web site and buy some lamb.

(And don't forget about the Georgia Sheep and Wool Growers' Association.)