My People Are Awesome Vol. III

This is my cousin Shaun and his wife Amy. Just this year they said Sayonara, suckers! to city life in Houston and started an organic farm on a charming piece of land in central Texas. And this is no weekend-hobby-farmer operation, no. They are building their farm from the ground up, with their own four hands, piece by sweaty piece.

First they had to create a place to live:

Which turned out splendidly, as you can see below, all romantic Out of Africa safari-esque.

Next up were houses for the sheep and chickens.


They are selectively grazing the sheep to reclaim an oldfield on the farm, so fantastic. You can read all about their journey here.

And lest the pleasing pictures lead you to believe this is all for show, just let me tell you that they are raising, harvesting, butchering and packaging the chickens and selling them at the Farmer's Market in Houston all by themselves. With their own hands. I talk a good game about preferring happy meat, but I couldn't have it without people like them.

Shaun and Amy have joined a growing number of folks from our generation who have decided that if we're really going to get serious about this whole Local Food/Slow Food movement, then we'd better start making locally grown meat and produce more available. I applaud their efforts. It's hard work, farming, (or so i'm told...) and it is made even harder when you're trying to do it whilst leaving as little footprint as possible.