I’ve been doing lots of interviews, talks, and promotions of #heritagebreedsweek for the last two weeks. As a historian and someone who loves to connect with personalities in history, I’ve been doing deep research again on some of the people upon whose shoulders we stand when we do our conservation work. On May 26 I put some of that information together for a short talk at my Athens Toastmasters meeting via Zoom. I made a…
What is International Breeds Week? International Heritage Breeds Week is May 17-23 in 2020. This celebration, conceived by The Livestock Conservancy, is always the third full week in May. The history and purpose of the week are expounded here. The aim is to raise global awareness of endangered livestock breeds such as the Guinea Hog. The hashtag on social media is #HeritageBreedsWeek. The Conservancy, previously known as the American Minor Breeds Conservancy (AMBC) and the…
Will and Dana Schouten are the owners of Closer to the Land Farm in Bear Creek, North Carolina. When they were getting started they needed some pigs to help clear their land. They hoped to find thrifty, independent animals that would not need much care and would stay calm around their other livestock and their young children. Will is a former combat infantryman. He does all the farm events and offers old-fashioned hog butchering workshops.…
This book has been a long time coming—after over five years of interviews, pouring over archival data, recording and transcribing, intensive internet searches, seeking contact information on possible sources, and slowly but surely piecing it all together in a coherent story. The print books are still about a month away from readiness, as I work with an interior book designer and an indexer to put the finishing touches on them. The e-book is live today,…