It's a self-consciously bucolic area of stone walls, hay fields, country inns, antique shops, and good rich soil for the many small, sustainable family farms. At the birchwood bar, bartender Benny Real is crushing fresh mint from the garden for mojitos and pouring shots from glass jars of vodka and rum infused with fresh berries. Pitmaster and kitchen boss Jaime Hernandez tends to the smoker and cranks out Texas-style beef brisket, slow-smoked pulled pork, and buttermilk-fried chicken....

Nowadays, his problems involve chiding his farmhand for feeding peanuts to the sheep and touring his property with a busload of old ladies. Where the preceding installments benefited from Katz's struggle to adjust to a new way of life, "Dog Days" finds the writer finally settled in and feeling pretty good. He's come a long way since 2004's thrilling "Dogs of Bedlam Farm," which found him shivering and cursing and questioning himself while delivering lambs in the thick of one of the worst...

But a very different "Eagles go home" message was conveyed by sheep farmers, more than 100 of whom gathered with placard to protest at the project. The eagles have taken young lambs in Scotland, where they have also been reintroduced, although there is uncertainty and debate about the scale of the risk they pose. They fear lambs will be in danger from the birds of prey, which will grow into formidable predators, weighing more than 7kg. They will now go through several weeks of...

The nomadic Bakerwal community, accorded Schedule Tribe status by the Central Government in 1991, is fighting a battle to retain their ancient cultural heritage while simultaneously trying to bridge the socio-economic gap with other communities in the state. The nomadic Bakerwal community, accorded Schedule Tribe status by the Central Government in 1991, is fighting a battle to retain their ancient cultural heritage while simultaneously trying to bridge the socio-economic gap with other...

When the 53-year-old Ballinger Elementary School principal needs a break from the confines of the hallways, zipping the fleece from a flock of sheep on a hot afternoon does the trick for him. But with a vibrating, razor-sharp shearing drop and a squirming hundred-pound animal, nicking either yourself or the sheep is easy to do _ especially when you've never done it before. The former schoolteacher begins a shearing job by swiftly plucking a sheep out of the flock by a hind limb. Because of...