Days on the Farm


Book Description

Collects five stories by Kim Lewis about life on a sheep ranch.




The Farmer's Son


Book Description

Farming has been in John Connell's family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Until, one winter, after more than a decade away, he finds himself back on the farm.




Days on the Family Farm


Book Description

From the beginning of the twentieth century to World War II, farm wife May Lyford Davis kept a daily chronicle that today offers a window into a way of life that has all but disappeared. May and her husband Elmo lived through two decades of prosperity, the Great Depression, and two World Wars in their Midwestern farming community. Like many women of her time, Davis kept diaries that captured the everyday events of the family farm; she also kept meticulous farming accounts. In doing so, she left an extraordinary record that reflects not only her own experiences but also the history of early twentieth-century American agriculture. May and Elmo’s story, engagingly told by Carrie A. Meyer, showcases the large-scale evolution of agriculture from horses to automobiles and tractors, a surprisingly vibrant family and community life, and the business of commercial farming. Details such as what items were bought and sold, what was planted and harvested, the temperature and rainfall, births and deaths, and the direction of the wind are gathered to reveal a rich picture of a world shared by many small farmers. With sustainable and small-scale farming again on the rise in the United States, Days on the Family Farm resonates with both the profound and mundane aspects of rural life—past and present—in the Midwest.




A Family Farm


Book Description

Switzer's memoir covers four generations of life on the family farm in Illinois. The tale is enhanced with photographs plus watercolors and woodblock prints by the author's wife and son. Frank E. Barmore adds information about the nineteenth-century history of this family farm, the Barmore family, and the settling of that area of Illinois.




This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm


Book Description

Winner of the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize 2019 selection for the One Book One Nebraska and All Iowa state reading programs "Genoways gives the reader a kitchen-table view of the vagaries, complexities, and frustrations of modern farming…Insightful and empathetic." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel The family farm lies at the heart of our national identity, and yet its future is in peril. Rick Hammond grew up on a farm, and for forty years he has raised cattle and crops on his wife’s fifth-generation homestead in Nebraska, in hopes of passing it on to their four children. But as the handoff nears, their family farm—and their entire way of life—are under siege on many fronts, from shifting trade policies, to encroaching pipelines, to climate change. Following the Hammonds from harvest to harvest, Ted Genoways explores the rapidly changing world of small, traditional farming operations. He creates a vivid, nuanced portrait of a radical new landscape and one family’s fight to preserve their legacy and the life they love.




Family Farming


Book Description

Americans decry the decline of family farming but stand by helplessly as industrial agribusiness takes over. The prevailing sentiment is that family farms should survive for important social, ethical, and economic reasons. But will they? This timely book exposes the biases in American farm policies that irrationally encourage expansion, biases evident in federal commodity programs, income tax provisions, and subsidized credit services. Family Farming also exposes internal conflicts, particularly the conflict between the private interests of individual farmers and the public interest in family farming as a whole. It challenges the assumption that bigger is better, critiques the technological basis of modern agriculture, and calls for farming practices that are ethical, economical, and ecologically sound. The alternative policies discussed in this book could yet save the family farm, and the ways and means of saving it are argued here with special urgency. ø This Bison Books edition includes a new introduction by the author providing a more national perspective, underscoring the repetitive cycles of American agriculture over the decade, and assessing the major policy issues that have dominated agriculture in recent years.




The Family Farm


Book Description

Isabelle Simpson longs to take over the family farm, but her ailing father won't give her a chance. The stand-off between them threatens to tear the family apart. Handsome neighbour Will Timmins holds the secret to building bridges between them, if Izzy can forgive him his past. Izzy is forced to make a tough decision - sacrifice an exciting new romance or relinquish her lifelong dream? But then unexpected tragedy falls on the farm, and Izzy is thrown the greatest challenge of all. As she gathers with family and friends by the shade of the gum-tree tavern, confessions are made, long-held secrets are revealed and hearts are set free. 'A heartwarming romance about finding true love and following your dreams.' Femail.com.au




Faith, Farming, and Family


Book Description

A young farmer’s wife draws on her life with kids, cows, and a front-porch view to help us see God’s goodness and beauty wherever we are, reminding us that the simple life is not a place to be but a way to be. “Grab a cup of coffee and join Caitlin on her porch to hear the lessons God has taught her through the good and hard of everyday life.”—Vivian Mabuni, speaker and author of Open Hands, Willing Heart: Discover the Joy of Saying Yes to God When Caitlin, a small-town girl, fell in love with a farm boy named Jake Henderson, she had little idea what farm life—or marriage and motherhood—would bring. But raising a family on a farm is teaching her more about God’s goodness and grace than she could have imagined. Faith, Farming, and Family is a rich, story-filled walk through farmhouse hallways, harvest-ready fields, and God’s bountiful dreams for our lives. As Caitlin reflects on everything from wayward tractors to watching a marriage grow from surviving to flourishing, she reminds us to see the redemption in our own stories. Join Caitlin in exploring biblical truth through the eyes of a farmer’s wife, whether you are wrangling kids onto a school bus, sowing creative seeds in a business meeting, or walking the pastures of your own family farm. Faith, Farming, and Family invites us to recognize God’s beauty right in front of us so that we might find the courage to take the next step—or the first step—into His incredible calling.




Our Farm


Book Description

Told through the voices of the children, this inside view of life on their farm is authentic and sometimes surprising. Readers will learn about baling hay, tending cattle, work dogs, hunting, manure, and other activities on the Bennett farm, as well as some insights into the culture of living in a rural area.




Gaining Ground


Book Description

With humor and pathos, Forrest Pritchard recounts his ambitious and often hilarious endeavors to save his family’s seventh-generation farm in the Shenandoah Valley. Through many a trial and error, he not only saves Smith Meadows from insolvency but turns it into a leading light in the sustainable, grass-fed, organic farm-to-market community. There is nothing young Farmer Pritchard won’t try. Whether he’s selling firewood and straw, raising free-range chickens and hogs, or acquiring a flock of Barbados Blackbelly sheep, his learning curve is steep and always entertaining. Pritchard’s world crackles with colorful local characters—farm hands, butchers, market managers, customers, fellow vendors, pet goats, policemen—bringing the story to warm, communal life. His most important ally, however, is his renegade father, who initially questions his son's career choice and eschews organic foods for the generic kinds that wreak havoc on his health. Soon after his father’s death, the farm becomes a recognized success and Pritchard must make a vital decision: to continue serving the local community or answer the exploding demand for his wares with lucrative Internet sales and shipping deals. More than a charming story of honest food cultivation and farmers’ markets, Gaining Ground tugs on the heartstrings, reconnecting us to the land and the many lives that feed us.