And Cat's Sheep!

Also just out: Cat Urbigkit's Shepherds of Coyote Rocks, her first adult book, a distillation and amplification of what you have come to love here and a leap forward for her.

This is the most nuanced and intelligent defense of the traditional pastoral life in print, by a writer who lives it and has heard all the dug- in uninformed arguments. I don't need to tell readers here about her; suffice to say she can work, and observe, and read, and think, and WRITE. I spent a few days on the ground with her and Jim last fall, and we killed a bottle at their trailer house; I heard more political complexity, diversity, and spirited debate and discussion in one night there than in a week in Jackson Hole, not to mention hearing many scientific papers on early domestication and the evolution of our commensals quoted by self- described "redneck" Jim!

I assume readers of this blog will love it; if they need a quote to pique the curiosity of others, try just this one, in defense of transhumance pastoralism: "As satellite images clearly revealed, both socialism and privatization are associated with worse long term outcomes than those observed in traditional group- based governance."

Many more like that, and stories, and characters, and Cat's photos!