Category Archives: Reading

Five Books

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On occasion, being broadminded folks, we allow the non-reader to visit our home. They are frequently confused as to why someone would possess a couple of thousand books. The farming and gardening section, alone, in my home library contains approximately 300 titles. Seeking to expose some dark awful secret, they ask, “so, you’ve read all these books?” “No, not all,” I reply. They nod their head, having confirmed something. I nod mine, having confirmed something as well.

However, clearly, I do love to read. Here are five titles that inspired me to want to farm.

Country Life: a handbook for realists and dreamers (Paul Heiney). A book that falls broadly in the category of coffee table book. It is the type of work that launches a thousand would be farmers. Pictures of spotless and well-maintained barns and farms, gleaming piles of produce, pictures of cured hams and bacon, beautifully plowed fields, rosy cheeked little kids, populate the pages. And, heck, even the mounds of manure looked well-scrubbed in this book. Nevertheless, as a work to inspire dreaming and then buying a farm, it does its job remarkably well. And, it manages, despite its overly idealistic tone, to provide some solid information. We bought our copy a couple of years before we bought the farm. Soon we found ourselves spending our downtime cruising the backroads of Tennessee looking for a place of our own.

We Farm for A Hobby, and make it pay (Henry Tetlow). There have been hundreds of these farming memoirs published. Middle class family chucks the city life and moves to the country. And, on the whole, as a genre, they work. I had this on my shelf for over ten years before I pulled it down and read it, maybe a year before the title above. Written in the 1930’s it had all that was needed to suck me in to this life. It seemed so reasonable, economical, and fun. Written with a wry sense of humor, Tetlow covers all the essentials of a small diverse farm operation.

Lost Country Life: how English country folk lived, threshed, thatched, rolled fleece, milled corn, brewed mead (Dorothy Hartley). Using Thomas Tusser’s instructional poem on English farming, she provides an encyclopedic assembly of farm life in the 1500-1600’s. Following the calendar, it covers the whole of the farm and village productive life, with plenty of history and wit added for texture. Beautifully written, completely engrossing, I highly recommend that I reread it.

A Farm: reflections of yesteryear (Philippe Dumas). A beautiful collection of watercolors that document the daily life on a farm that belonged to the artist’s wife’s grandfather. Each print illustrates a part of the life on a large and highly diversified farm before the arrival of the automobile. A lovely way to spend an evening is to turn the pages in this book.

My Summer in a Garden (Charles Dudley Warner). The next-door neighbor of Samuel Clemens, the author wrote this charmer in 1870. It covers a single season in his vegetable garden. Warner was a newspaper editor and clearly an influential man, even General Grant pops into his garden at some point. But, he did all his gardening himself. And, he has a fine self-deprecating sense of humor about his successes and failures. Which, of course, is the mark of a true gardener or farmer, that ability to laugh at oneself.

Each of these titles is still available, although the Dumas title is now at a dear price.

Engagement

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Free Advice, Enjoy the Methodical       

One challenge I give myself each year, dutifully written down in my new year’s resolutions, is to enjoy the methodical; those tasks we hurry through or avoid altogether, simply to get to the free time that we then squander. Whether it is washing dishes, shoveling out a stall, splitting or stacking wood, there is a fulfillment to be found in a slow physical and repetitive work. But, the act of slowing down is at odds with the demands of our frenetic modern world. Which, in its turn, spawns a desperate populace of chasers after an elusive serenity, roaming our streets.

An afternoon spent with a manure pile might just provide the corrective spiritual focus. Hold that pitchfork and who knows where the thought currents might take one.

“Like” vs. Writing Letters

Here is a confession, I no longer write letters. For most of my adult life I typed out letters, put them in an envelope, and sent them off. Then, over the past fifteen years, I completely embraced the email format. Although I don’t get the satisfaction of finding the reply letter in the physical mailbox, the essential pleasures are still observed; me and a friend taking time to share thoughts and experiences.

But, by entering the world of social media three years ago, most of that fell away. I now have more interactions but less contact. It is analogous to walking down a busy street and saying hello to friends and nodding at acquaintances, hearing arguments and avoiding fights, without engaging in a proper discussion.

I’d like to get off that busy street. Perhaps turn off into that leafy park, sit on a bench and continue/begin that longer conversation with a friend.

Last One to Read, Turn Out the Lights

I’ve alluded to my off the farm job in the past. A job that occasions some flying. Over the past twenty years I’ve observed the gradual darkening of the planes. Years ago, most passengers, upon sitting down, pulled out newspapers, magazines and books. They kept the window shade up. Now, the first thing passengers do is close the shade. And, then the next two hours are spent sitting in the dark (except for a few lone lights marking the outposts of those who still read), playing video games and watching movies. This seems a sad surrender.

This Blog

This blog is an act of engagement, my effort to keep the lights on. You may “like it” and I will appreciate that acknowledgement. But, taking the time to sit on this bench and share a written reply is also welcome.

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Reading this weekend: the short stories of Ernie Hemingway.

What Are You Reading

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I love books, always have. I grew up in a family that made plenty of space for reading, in a home where the TV was not allowed on after the nightly news. Books were a prominent part of our physical landscape, from the shelf of books in our bedrooms to the bookcase in the living room that was filled with history books.

Fence Pliers in the Library, with....

Visits to the Lake Charles Carnegie Library a couple of times a week during the summer were supplemented by gifts from my grandmother, a librarian, of books deaccessioned from the Acadia Parish Library. And each birthday or Christmas included at least one book as a present. The question “What are you reading?” was raised in each phone call from a relative. Books were then, still are, central to how I understand and experience the world.

As a youth, they took me on adventures and exploration. I sailed on voyages aboard clipper ships, Viking ships, sailing warships. I explored the Rockies with the Mountain Men. I was kidnapped by pirates and later by Indians. I learned to raise a raccoon with Rascal and to navigate the Mississippi with Tom Sawyer. I became a 1930s vet in the Yorkshire Dales and rode with Paul Revere as he raised the alarm to the British invasion.

As an adult, books still provide a bookend to my farm life: a few chapters before sunrise and a bit more before sleep. Visiting others, I’ll gravitate to the bookshelf (or, special joy, bookcase), that semi-public form of autobiography, a map of character, if you will, where the knowledge that a friend has a collection of P.G. Wodehouse means he can be relied on in tough times.

Our culture has changed and people do read books less, sometimes not at all. But it is still a wonderful question to ask, one that teaches if we listen to the answer: What are you reading?

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Reading this weekend: G.K. Chesterton’s biography of William Cobbett