Ep 199 Leicester Longwool: Everything's Not Always Black and White

This week we take you back to one of our earliest interviews, and one of our most formative experiences in the Backyard Green Films universe. We learned the fundamental joy of buying handmade things, and doing so face to face. And when we say that, we actually mean face-to-face not only in the kitchen where the soap was made, but with the farmer who made it and the goat who produced the milk for the ingredients. Holy cow (or, in this case…okay, you get it). How often d...

14 Joulu 202035min

We haven’t talked about horses for a while, and they’re definitely one of our favorite creatures, so today we’re off to Wisconsin, to talk about one of the most majestic animals in the equine world: The Friesian. Native to Holland and beloved by film producers everywhere for their striking looks, there’s a very long history on these animals, and they have gorgeous movement to boot. We met up with Nicole Porter Salvato and her husband Dan on their beautifully-remote hilltop ranch i...

7 Joulu 202032min

When we went to Martin and Joy Dally’s Shepherd’s Lane Farm in Oregon last month for a Laproscopic A.I. Sheeping Bonanza last month, the one thing we didn’t think we’d come home thinking about was…cheese. Not that we’re complaining, of course. The people we met there were enough to keep us busy interviewing for days, and we’re going back for the lambing part, so we obviously didn’t get enough. Dr. Joe Klopfenstein, DVM, DABVP, sat down to talk with us in a bustling pasture w...

30 Marras 202029min

What are you thankful for? It seems like the Thanksgiving table will be pretty empty, and pretty bleak for many people this year. And what kind of hope is there in the midst of so much death and pollution and destruction and isolation in the world today? What are we supposed to learn here, anyway? The answer: We learn from Fungi (mushrooms, to most of us). This amazing organism has been around long enough to be in the fossil record, and has been doing the same th...

23 Marras 202011min

There is finally a chill in the air! Some of us here in warmer climates look forward to the time each year when cold weather arrives, so we can cozy up on the sofa in front of the fireplace without melting from the heat outside. 60 degrees is probably a very reasonable temperature to start up the fireplace, we think. But in other places, cold is a constant reality, and it is not to be taken lightly, especially in the area of food production. In the far north in places...

16 Marras 202035min

2020 has been a year filled with catastrophic disasters of all types, and the only thing unclear is which movie we’re reenacting at the current moment. Backdraft meets Twister meets 2012, with a dash of the Day after Tomorrow and a near miss by Armageddon. If those weren’t crazy enough, there were a few reports of brushes from Orca and Jaws tossed in for variety, with slices of Yul Brenner and Chuck Heston in The Ten Commandments (Locusts and plagues, no less). I could point...

9 Marras 202021min

With the past weekend in the rearview mirror, we’ve wrapped up October, Halloween, and the craziness of voting here in the U.S. -- at least for most of us. Some will still be dealing with both the last little bits of voting in person and leftover Halloween candy for the rest of the week, and both might be somewhat traumatic for us in some way or another. But we’re feeling lighter already and a little slaphappy, so we’ll bring up some ideas that seem far apart, but are actually con...

2 Marras 202045min

It’s donkey time again! The Donkey Welfare Symposium was a wild one last October (there were libations and tattoos and singing farriers and speakers from exotic ports of call), and it looks like this year’s virtual conference will follow that theme. “Donkeys in the Wild” is kicking off virtually on October 30 -31, 2020, and we’re celebrating by bringing you our interview from last year’s event with Jessica Anselment. This intrepid soul is the author of two donkey-related chi...

26 Loka 202034min