George Washington: General, President AND Farmer

Near and dear to his heart were his troops, the new nation and his wife and family. Also at the top of George Washington's list was his beloved Mount Vernon. In Farmer George Plants a Nation you’ll learn how the operation of this plantation was never far from his mind, even when he was filling his obligations as general and president. It's also a great lesson in analysis. You can practically see his cogs turning as he designs a plow that does the work of three men, experiments with different fertilizers to improve the soil and dreams up a unique wheat threshing barn. It's a refreshingly different view of George Washington that is punctuated with actual notes from his diaries. The wonderful illustrations depict Washington as a very involved large estate holder and do not hide the fact that he was a slave owner as well. I recommend this book to everybody, but especially to the child who is into gardening and composting.

Ages 9-12
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Activity: Here is an amazing free online virtual game, George Washington's World for Kids. I found it at the George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Garden website. I really felt like I was walking around Mount Vernon and talking to the people there. You can go into the main house and through it and around the grounds. My heart about stopped when I bumped into George Washington himself on his front porch. In order to play I had to download some free software (Unity Player) but it was easy to install and well worth it.

A Year in the Life of a Peasant

If you ever think to yourself, "I wonder what life was like for the Medieval peasant?" then I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Till Year's Good End by W. Nikola-Lisa. Each spread is devoted to the work accomplished in a given month, starting with January. I adore this book. The illustrations are wonderful. Obviously their creator, Christopher Manson, was inspired by medieval woodcuts. As you turn the book's pages you realize that he has captured the essence of the changing seasons. The first person verses for each month are pleasing to read...

MARCH: I till the earth first sign of spring. And sow good seed while blackbirds sing.

Just enough additional explanations are included. Your child will gain insight into the tenant farmer arrangement and realize just how long the peasant chore list was: collect firewood, repair bridges, clear roads and ditches, maintain buildings, repair nets, make harnesses, sharpen knives and axes, fit handles on scythes and sickles, make reed mats and baskets, carve wooden spoons, platters and bowls, spin flax and wool into thread, make clothes, make candles, make ropes, mend fences, feed the livestock, plow, plant, prune, build wattle-and-daub buildings with thatched roofs, sheer the sheep, tend the beehives, mow and bundle the hay, weed, harvest the crops, mine the salt, grind the flour, bake the bread, clean the privy, slaughter the livestock, smoke the meat, pick the fruit and make the wine.

Sure makes a "clean your room" request seem easily surmountable.

Ages 6-9

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Activity: Use this 15th Century recipe to make some gingerbread.

Hungry Times

In the good old days there were some bad old years. The Irish Potato Famine and the American Dust Bowl are two such instances. Each of these "good farming gone bad" events caused immense physical and financial suffering, epic migrations and questions concerning government response.

My maiden name is O'Brien. My great-grandparents immigrated from Ireland to America during the famine but I had never actually read about it. Then I picked up Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850. Wow. What a mess! The vast majority of the Irish population were tenant farmers working on land owned by British landlords, and they depended heavily on potatoes to feed their large families. Then along came a blight that turned their potatoes into a black, stinky mush...for five years! This book is loaded with stories of starvation, disease, evictions, work-houses, famine ships, death and misery. It also delves into the Irish/English relationship at that time. How Britain's frustrating Corn Laws, which placed a high tax on imported grains, elevated the local costs of all oats, wheat, barley and rye, exacerbating the famine problem. Also mentioned is the attempted uprising against the British government led by William Smith O'Brien.

Many stories I will have a hard time shaking off. The baker who was obsessed with cleaning his clothes before going into the street for fear any remnants of flour dust would create a frenzied mob. The family that knew the farmer next door shot and buried two diseased pigs and waited until nightfall to dig them up and eat them. The men who cut off the tails of cattle or drained a few pints of blood from them, thereby not destroying someone else's property, and yet providing some protein to their families.

In fact, what makes this book so interesting are all the first hand accounts along with the many etchings as they appeared in London newspapers. If nothing else, Susan Campbell Bartoletti's book will make you ever so thankful the next time you are at the table and say, "please, pass the potatoes."

Ages YA

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Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s describes how life on the plains bottomed out as topsoil blew away.

On May 9, 1934, a dust storm carried an estimated 350 million tons of dirt two thousand miles eastward. Weathermen calculated that four million tons of prairie dirt fell on Chicago—four pounds for each city resident. The following day, the dust darkened the sky over Buffalo, New York, and Atlanta, Georgia. Three hundred miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, brown prairie dirt fell like snow on the decks of ships.

During World War I the federal government guaranteed farmers $2.00 per bushel of wheat. When the war ended, European demand for wheat encouraged what historians call "the Great Plow Up." In Oklahoma in 1915, only a few thousand tractors tilled the soil, but ten years later 50,000 tractors were working the fields. Then the disk harrow, with it's long row of circular blades, replaced the single-blade iron plow. Millions of acres of native grasses that held the earth in place were plowed under. Some farmers planted crops right up to their front doors. Then rain became scarce and winds began to blow.

Michael L. Cooper's straightforward book goes on to describe the policies of newly elected Franklin D. Roosevelt, the all encompassing Great Depression and the migration of millions to mostly California. The book includes many first hand accounts and heart-wrenching photographs.

Ages 9-12

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Activity: Can you correctly identify the most affected states on the Dust Bowl Map?

Fruit of the Earth

They are of different genders, different continents and different centuries. So what do Johnny Chapman and Wangari Maathai have in common? Trees.

Johnny Chapman was popularly known as Johnny Appleseed and dozens of books have been written about him. Of those my favorite is Johnny Appleseed: The Story of a Legend, mostly because I love the illustrations! They are the folksy and friendly creations of Will Moses who obviously inherited his talent from his famous great grandmother, Grandma Moses.

Johnny Appleseed spent his youth in Pennsylvania then migrated to the wild frontiers of Ohio and Indiana. At the time "a written law said every new homestead must plant fifty apple trees. An orchard showed a settler's intention to stay put and work the land. So Johnny figured, apple trees were just what the frontier needed and he'd supply them." Apples provided many uses: "dried apples, apple butter, applesauce, apple pie, apple cider, apple brandy, applejack, apple vinegar and best of all, apples, just tasted so good"

Johnny was commonly the first person a new settler met. If a family was too poor to buy his trees he gave them apple seedlings anyway. He also gave the shirt off his back and the shoes off his feet to those in need. Johnny Appleseed gained a reputation for being kind to all—people and animals. He was not only enterprising and generous but also quirky, lanky, spiritual, an avid reader and a mesmerizing storyteller. In his lifetime he planted thousands of apple trees. Will Moses' book is a great introduction to this good soul.

Ages 9-12

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Nearly a hundred years after Johnny Appleseed died, Wangari Maathai was born to a peasant farmer in the lush central highlands of Kenya. She eventually attended college in America, studying biology. When she returned to Kenya five years later she was aghast to find a nearly treeless landscape. By reading Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai children will learn how an ordinary person can make an extraordinary difference. Wangari inspired women, school children, prisoners and soldiers to plant seedlings. In thirty years thirty million trees were planted in Kenya and the planting continues to this day. The author, Claire A. Nivola, is also the creator of the charming illustrations of this very inspiring book.

Ages 9-12

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Activity: Grow and plant your own tree.