Adventures of an Unlikely Farmer

by Antonia Murphy

About a young couple who love to sail, end up in New Zealand, and decide to stay. They had a few acres of land- at first a rented place, then later manage to buy their own. Start out by taking care of other peoples’ animals- an elderly dog, a few cats and chickens. Things do not go well from the start, from diseases attacking the hens, and a duck assaulting them repeatedly until one dies. Not at all for the faint of heart, full of disgusting descriptions of all kinds of things that can go wrong with livestock keeping- from terribly cute alpacas that spit deadly green goo at anyone they dislike, to sheep that need their butts shaved to prevent maggots from burrowing in, to midwifing a goat that eats her own placenta (normal, but rather gross the way it’s described). And just more from then on. I cringed at parts, was astonished and laughed out loud at others. Oh, and the descriptions of cheese-making attempts in this book, have made me not want to eat that product for a very long time. And there were some details about their neighbors, learning about the local culture- I did wish for a bit more of that, whereas usually I’m more keen on reading about the animals. This one was mostly focused on their children, and how they kept accumulating animals, learning to care for them, dealing with all the messiness and trials that includes. Goats, chickens, alpacas, cows, sheep. They drew the line at pigs after the husband helped someone else castrate a bunch of piglets. No go. Too much poop flinging for my taste.

Exacerbated by two little kids, one who talks easily about death and gross things, the other who suffers from seizures no doctors can find the cause. It’s sad to read about how they struggled to find treatment for their son, while accepting him for who he was and finding him a place in the coummnity. A bit alarming how much they let their kids just roam around- reminded me of the Slacker Mom, ha. Other books this brought to mind: the Bucolic Plague and Once Upon a Flock and The Dirty Life. I know there’s others, about raising chickens and taking up farming late in life, but can’t think of them now.

Had a recent knock to my health, doing some reading as I recuperate but not very keen on the writing right now- screens give me awful nausea and headache at the moment. So when I do manage to get on here a post something (so as not to forget what I’ve been reading) it will be short and to the point, for a while . . .

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
256 pages, 2015

More opinions: Book Chase
anyone else?

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn

by Catherine Friend

I really liked this book. It’s about the author’s forays into farming, with her female partner. A big concern they had starting their farm, was how people in the small town would react to a lesbian couple as neighbors. Nobody batted an eye. Much harder was learning the skills- they’d had grandparents that farmed, but didn’t have any direct experience themselves. The author was a writer, her partner wanted to start a farm and she was supportive, so they dived in together. One of them a bit reluctant to get her hands dirty, prone to anxiety and a tendency to be controlling. The other enthusiastic and brave (lots of dangerous equipment and situations!) about all things farming, but easily angry- at immediate problems, at her partner, at the world in general. The story is just as much about the difficulties their relationship suffers through, and how they work through that, as it is about farming. First they raise chickens, then try their hands at sheep and wine grapes. Trying to do it all with the least negative impact to the land, few pesticides and chemicals, etc (but not strictly organic). With lots of pitfalls and a steep learning curve. And the author’s personal struggles realizing how much the farm work takes away from her writing, and figuring out how to balance that without leaving her partner all the heavy work. I loved how brisk and down-to-earth this book was. Grimacing and laughing at the mishaps, delighting in the new lambs and other joys, the satisfaction of good work done. Very honest about how hard it all is. I could relate far better to this book than Dirty Chick they have a lot in common, but the mindset and personality varies widely.

And then there’s all the animals! In addition to chickens and sheep, they had goats, llamas, ducks and geese. I was a bit baffled and disappointed not to hear more about the dogs. Several dogs from the start that were just pets, but then they got a young border collie. Reported feeling encouraged when he showed “eye” towards the sheep- but then no mention of the dog being used to move sheep, or getting trained- however lots of pages about the difficulties in herding sheep or catching them. I suppose they never found time to train the dog? or it didn’t work out? but there’s no explanation of that at all. I just found that a tad frustrating as a reader, because every time I read about how hard it was to catch an individual sheep or move them, I’d think: where’s that border collie? why isn’t he helping with this job. Would have liked to know.

Other similar books: The Bucolic Plague by Josh Kilmer-Purcell, The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball, Shepherds of Coyote Rocks by Cat Urbigkit, Thoughts While Tending Sheep by W. G. Ilefeldt. I know I’ve read others about keeping sheep, and being new to farming, but these are the ones that came immediately to mind.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5
240 pages, 2006

by Stephen Green-Armytage

If you\’ve ever thought chickens are dull, take a look at this book! Extraordinary Chickens showcases dozens of exotic and unusual breeds. I knew that some chickens are bred for show, but I had no idea how beautiful and bizarre they can be. There are chickens little and big, streamlined and fat. There are chickens who look like they\’ve had a perm (frizzles) and ones with such fine feathers it looks like mammal fur (silkies). Chickens with pom-poms on their heads, or on their feet. Some have fantastically strange combs- including ones split like two horns- others have no combs at all and look like vultures or crows. Chickens with no tail, and chickens with tails twenty feet long! Chickens with beards, with mowhawks, with whiskers! There\’s even a chicken with a naked neck. It made me think of the sphinx cat. I thought the most striking feather pattern was on the Sebright. And the most beautiful the Yokohama. There\’s even a photo of the red jungle fowl, which looks just like a chicken to me! Besides the stunning photographs, there is an essay \”The Strange and Beautiful World of Exotic Chickens\” which was quite interesting, and brief notes on all the featured breeds.

Rating: 3/5                112 pages, 2000

on farming, food and love

by Kristin Kimball

Another book about farm life. Here the author describes how she made the decision to leave her busy, affluent New York City existence for the backbreaking labor and intense involvement of starting a farm with her new fiance. Not just any farm, but one that would provide a full diet to a small (at first) community of members who bought into “shares” of the farm’s produce at the beginning of each year. Other farms that provide for people this way usually only grow vegetables, but the Kimballs’ farm aimed to give everything a person would need for a well-rounded diet: milk, eggs, dairy products, meats, grains, etc. Even (eventually) other things such as wood for fuel. But the book isn’t really about how this kind of farm works (it was the only one of its type when they started).

It’s about the tough work of putting a functional farm together out of a neglected piece of land. It’s about planning, planting, sweating, fixing things, learning animal husbandry, dealing with setbacks, getting to know the neighbors, battling weeds (on an organic farm they must all be hoed or pulled by hand!), desperately trying to prioritize chores, falling to bed exhausted, and rejoicing in the growth of plants, the birth of new animals, the taste of wonderful food two steps from its bed in the soil. A wonderful read, one that really takes you into the heart of what it’s like to grow and raise the food to feed an entire community. It’s about the soul of a farm, and how it won one woman’s heart, through all the difficulties and small joys.

I discovered this book in a Friday Finds post on At Home with Books. Borrowed it from the public library.

Rating: 4/5
276 pages, 2010

by Tory McCagg

Subtitled: A \”What If It Works?\” Adventure in Off-Grid Living and Quest for Home. The author and her husband lived in Rhode Island and bought some land in New Hampshire where they built a solar-powered house for vacation use, where they end up living full-time. I was interested to read this book because keeping chickens is something I aspire to – and I admire off-the-grid living but don\’t know if I\’ll ever do so (it sounds like a lot of work). The chickens don\’t show up in this book until about page 50. A lot of it is actually backstory- where the couple came from, how they met, how she grew up and that formed her world. Struggles they had, not only with building and maintaining the house on a windy hillside up a long winding rough road but also in their relationship, in their feeling of responsibility towards the Earth, and in a very personal way, the author watching her parents grow older and face death. The story of her father\’s passing very sad. Reading about her mother\’s progressing difficulties living with Parkinson\’s disease also very sad. Even keeping the chickens- which began as an effort to only eat \”happy eggs\” from chickens that had been raised well and treated humanely- had its sad moments. In spite of trying to only buy or adopt chicks that were female, they ended up with more than one rooster. (They let a hen hatch her own eggs too). Sometimes they were able to find another farm that needed a rooster for their flock, but they also once went through the process of slaughtering their extra roosters for food- emotionally difficult after knowing those chickens so well, their personalities and little struggles and triumphs over the years. Of course they also lost some chickens to natural causes- taken by hawks and other predators, and quite a few died of cancer (a vet did autopsies for them). But there are glad moments too, and wonderful ones, and bright humor. For example, their first rooster considered everything outside his domain, and would attack the husband whenever he went out to work on the building project. He figured out how to deflect these attacks, and it was hilarious!

It feels a bit scattered at times- the book\’s focus is their whole life, their view on things, what that came from, how it grows and changes just as much as anything. Ongoing concern for the environment, personal efforts to live better, have a lighter footprint on the earth, and struggles to reconcile other things they can\’t, or won\’t, change about their lives. No, it\’s not just chickens. They are a central part though, once you get through the beginning.

I received an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating 3/5               191 pages, 2020

Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories

by Alice Walker

The chapters are very short, taken from the author’s blog (I didn’t know she had one). Mostly they’re about her chickens, but veer into other subjects as well, such as visiting the Dalai Lama. The quality- or at least my personal reaction to them- varies widely. On the one hand, her observations of chicken behavior, relating little incidents, bemoaning the death of some (one got its head shut in a door, another was eaten by a predator) and extolling the beauty of their feathers, made for a nice read. I even learned some things (chicken combs get brighter in color when they are laying eggs, which makes me think how fishes color up vividly when they’re breeding). On the other hand, she gets so effusively enthusiastic and emotional about the chickens I’m either scratching my head or feeling a tad uncomfortable. She ties chicken musings into spirituality and life lessons- some of which seemed spot-on to me, others left me baffled. I felt like I was reading a book written by someone whose life experience and though process are very different from my own- something to respect and admire, but I just couldn’t connect sometimes. Interesting that for all the love she has for her chickens (she writes them letters from her travels and calls herself their ‘Mommy’), the author will occasionally eat chicken. Sometimes she feels guilty about this, sometimes not. She writes a bit about the morality of eating animals, mostly leaning to the opinion that if they were treated humanely, it’s okay (as far as I could tell).

Some things that made me laugh, or sit up and think: she says gophers eat chickens (I don’t think this is true). She has a favorite emotion: astonishment. I have favorite books, foods, people, places to visit- but emotions to feel? Honestly I never thought about this before! She also kept using this term “space nuts” that she made up (referring to people) which she explained but I didn’t really get it.

Audiobook- read by the author herself, which was lovely. Three hours forty-five minutes listening time. Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5
208 pages, 2012

More opinions: Farm Lane Books Blog
anyone else?

Why Your Chickens Do What They Do and Say What They Say

by Melissa Caughey

This is a nice book and I enjoyed reading it, but the title is a bit misleading. It’s only got a few pages that are actually about chicken communication (what sounds they make to signal alarm, greeting, contentment, to call their chicks, to tell flock members they found food, etc) beyond that not much depth. In fact, most of the book doesn’t go into much depth. It’s full of large, very nice photographs, lots of general information and some interesting facts, that’s about it. Some is based on the author’s own observations and experiences with her chickens (she says one of the sounds they made was their own name for her), alternating pages are from or about other backyard chicken owners (including Sy Montgomery). I did like the personal anecdotes, and of course this makes me want all over again to keep my own chickens someday. Although I imagine dealing with their bullying wouldn’t be fun, but it seems evident that chickens can show compassion and concern for others’ safety too. And they are full of enthusiasm for life, excitement about every good thing in a day. A few things I learned: chickens sleep with just one half of their brain when napping. They can regenerate brain cells even when the brain hasn’t been injured (the usual trigger for this to happen in humans). Their eyesight is keener than ours. They have friends in the flock, and the rooster definitely has his preferences among the hens. Sometimes if there is no rooster in the flock, a hen will develop male characteristics and take on that role (even going so far as to perform mating behavior with the hens). Never heard of that before!
Borrowed from the public library
Rating: 3/5
144 pages, 2017

by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

In this fun little book, the letters of the alphabet dance up the trunk of a tree singing out about who will get there first, is there enough room? I\’ll meet you there! Telling of their little adventure with a singsong chant introduces all the letters in order, making it a fun way for kids to become familiar with the alphabet. At the end the tree can\’t support the weight of all the letters and they fall down in a big pile (boom! boom!) My toddler just loves seeing that last picture with the jumble of letters, she\’ll often insist on turning to it before we finish the rhymes on the previous pages. A silly book full of bright colors, bold simple shapes and plenty of fun. One of my daughter\’s favorites.

Rating: 3/5 …….. 14 pages, 1989

by DK Publishing

This is one of my toddler\’s favorite board books right now. We got it from a library sale. I think she likes it so much because it\’s very small, so fits well in her hands and just by its size alone is charming. Plus, she loves chicks! Next to cats, I think they\’re her favorite animal. She learned to say \”bock, bwak\” before any other animal sound and when we go to the petting zoo she laughs and wiggles at the baby chicks. No other critter there gets the same reaction of delight.

The little book shows the mother hen sitting on eggs, then the baby chicks hatching. After that each spread shows the chicks doing something- pecking at seeds, sipping water, finding things (a seed and a nasturtium flower), or just standing around in groups looking cute. The text is very simple descriptions of what is going on for each page. It\’s a darling little book.

rating: 3/5 ……. 20 pages, 2003

by Ellen Stimson

I thought this book would be something like Dirty Chick– but it wasn’t. Similarity: it’s about a family that decided to move to their favorite vacation spot, putting down new roots in northern Vermont. From city to rural area, with all the adjustments that takes. Everything else is different. This book isn’t nearly as funny as it wants to be, and a lot of it just rubbed me the wrong way. It doesn’t help that the author’s personality is the complete opposite of mine- though I can often like reading varied points of view. But the focus was all wrong here. Or at least, what the author thought readers would find interesting, funny and endearing, just had me shaking my head or cringing. Rather like my reaction to A Dog Called Perth. Let’s keep this painful thing short: I was expecting to read about the author’s attempt to embrace a rural lifestyle: raising chickens, chasing wayward goats, dealing with the weather, etc. And it is, but only in small bits. The best parts are mentioned in the blurbs, front jacket flap and intro- so there’s not much else to get to inside the pages. There’s an encounter with a bear, a fight with a skunk, the adopting of two bottle-fed lambs which ends awkwardly (they had no plans what to do when it grew up). There’s effusive descriptions of the scenery and the changing seasons- and that’s about it.

Most of the book is about their misguided attempts to run a local general store, their poor business decisions, their excitable plans that never quite turn out, and exactly how they made such a poor impression on all the locals. It’s the kind of book where the author obviously wants you to laugh along with her, at her (with plenty of oddly-placed footnotes tongue-in-cheek explaining that), but I didn’t. I got tired of reading about mismanaged money and ditching this attempt to start another before she’d even got the store off their hands. In the end I was skimming pages. There’s recipes in the back- they all sound delicious but also very dense and rich (I probably won’t try any). It is very readable, though. A light, breezy conversational style that you can get through quickly. Just not at all my cup of tea.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5

DISCLAIMER:

All books reviewed on this site are owned by me, or borrowed from the public library. Exceptions are a very occasional review copy sent to me by a publisher or author, as noted. Receiving a book does not influence my opinion or evaluation of it

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