"These Troubled Times seem to have precipitated a fowl renaissance," says Michael Perry in his new book, "Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting." "The online world is alive with Subaru-driving National Public Radio supporters trading tips on eco-friendly coop construction and the pros and cons of laying mash."

Are you one of them? If so, then this book is for you. Perry, author of "Truck: A Love Story" and "Population 485," makes his living contributing to magazines and writing books from his farm in Fall Creek, Wis. He also raises chickens and hogs, and aspires to add beef cattle; he grew up on a small dairy farm nearby. But lately as he looks past the chickens on his property, he sees the glow of a nearby mall and executive mansions creeping closer. Some of these people are urban transplants in search of their own rural dream. As long as they make good neighbors, Perry’s OK with the new people.

"Last year one of my neighbors was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We all got together to make a winter's worth of firewood for him. We cut, split, and stacked all day, and the crew included one banker, one financier, one furnace repairman, one auto mechanic, and a couple of farmers or children of farmers ... bottom line is, I'm less interested in the size of your house than whether or not you show up to help stack some wood for your neighbor in need."

In this memoir, Perry contemplates the gentrification of the country (and the countrification of the city); rural parenting, from homebirth to home-schooling; foster parenting (his folks took in many, many kids, some with heart-rending medical issues); life with chickens, pigs and dogs (and the dark places where the three meet); and the role of music in his life. When he’s not writing or farming, Perry makes music. When he is writing, he plays music.

"I number musicians among my single greatest writing influences for a number of reasons. People like Steve Earle, Waylon Jennings, James McMurtry, Lucinda Williams and Fred Eaglesmith taught me that you could try for this thing called Art but still remain largely roughneck," he says. "Greg Brown has been a singular influence and inspiration over pretty much everything I've done and how I've tried to do it since the day I first heard him."

Like his idols, Perry lives on troubadour time, and is away from the farm as many as 100 days a year. His wife and daughter slop the hogs and mash the chickens in the meantime.

Perry will read in Red Wing tonight at 7 p.m. at the Best of Times Bookstore, 425 W 3rd St. Full events schedule here.