Friday's recommended reading:

I've often described the Devon village I live in as a town full of artists...but it's also well known, in this part of Britain, for its strong and lively "green" community, supporting organic farming, permaculture, the slow food/local food movements, recycling, composting, eco-building, and other sustainability issues. 

A few weeks ago, the Guardian newspaper ran an article  on "Chagfood,"a community-supported agriculture project run by young local farmers (inspired by the Levellers and the Diggers), with the help of Samson, a four-year old Welsh cob/Dartmoor pony cross.

"My suspicion," writes journalist Carole Cadwalladr, "was that Samson's real purpose was to give the project a rural cute factor, but this was before I met Ed [Hames] and realised that this isn't some whimsical hobby, it's part of a greater philosophical framework. He's a boyish 29 years old, and might not look like much of a revolutionary, hanging out, growing cabbage and onions in a field in Devon, but he's a proper ideologue. On the one hand, Chagfood is about providing local, sustainable, seasonable produce, but it's also part of his wider mission: extending land rights for all."

Read the whole article (here) for an interesting glimpse at another side of our village. Related links: the Chagfood website & blog, The Chagford Hub, Proper Job, The Land Magazine, and the Reclaim the Fields organization. Also, check out the video of Samson above. He is awfully cute, and I always love seeing him clip-clop into town with his cart full of veggies....

(With thanks to Tigana for alerting me to the article's publication.)