Novella Carpenter: The Education of an Urban Farmer

Novella Carpenter, author of  Farm City: the Education of an Urban Farmer was in Austin on October 31 for a workshop entitled "The Complete Turkey".

I hope you heard about it.  I just ran across it and her a few minutes ago.  Here's her description of the workshop:

For meat eaters, raising turkeys is a dare, a stunt, a Herculean effort. The turkey is the most American of birds—native to North America, eaten by Indians, Aztecs, and pilgrims. Most people, come November, eat a Thanksgiving turkey without really knowing what a turkey looks or acts like, much less all the work that goes into raising one of these birds for the table.  In this class, we will show best practices for raising your own Thanksgiving turkey, including feeding, coop construction, breeding, and day to day care.

Following these basics, we will “harvest” a heritage breed turkey. Novella will demonstrate a humane, fool-proof method of dispatching a turkey, including plucking and cleaning. Seeing this process firsthand will make your upcoming Thanksgiving more meaningful than ever.

Her blog, Ghost Town Farm details her adventures farming in an Oakland ghetto neighborhood and her travels elsewhere.

The video below comes from Fora.tv.  To see the whole presentation click on the appropriate place on the screen.  In this presentation she reads from her book.  Chow.com has a fantastic video of Novella's urban farm entitled "Obsessives: Urban Farming" which is really, really worth the time to watch.