Dear Valerie: Cigars and Tobacco Mosaic Virus

On Dec 4, 2012, at 6:02 PM, Valerie . . .  wrote to Atina Diffley: Hi Atina, Firstly I LOVE your book! My husband and a group of his friends get together about once a month and smoke cigars. Last summer one evening it was at our house and they smoked on the back deck…

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The Impermanence of Eden – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Scott Carlson, senior reporter of the Chronicle of Higher Education, has written a very personal and powerful book review of Turn Here Sweet Corn that frames the way each of us is connected to the story. Scott grew up living adjacent to the original Diffley farm He roamed and played on the land and worked for…

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Turn Here Sweet Corn Dialog On Urban Planning

I am very happy to write that my recently published memoir, Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works, is stimulating dialogue —as I had hoped! I am receiving wonderful emails from readers with discussion and comments about land use planning. Please keep them coming. A Star Tribune article, Hey, soil sister: Atina Diffley, by reporter…

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Stepping Into The Perspective Of Another

Subscribe to Atina’s Blog During a recent interview, I was asked why I choose to write Turn Here Sweet Corn as a personal story. I explained that I wanted the reader to feel the characters’ experience. The intellect is involved with understanding the issues, but the heart needs to be engaged for behavior to change.…

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What Is A Farm?

farm (färm). n. 1. A tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes. No. The land is not the farm. That is so clear. How could a major dictionary have got it so wrong? The land was here long before the farm and long before the people or the business. The land is completely its own.…

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We live in relationships—

And one more piece of the community fabric in Dakota County, MN. has just been torn. The bi-monthly Fahey consignment auction (I often called it the “buy-monthly” as it was a main source of equipment and tools for Gardens of Eagan for thirty+ years) has discontinued it’s on-site, in-person portion of the auction and is…

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