[PDF] A Family Farm eBook

Author : Forrest Pritchard
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 341 pages
File Size : 36,15 MB
Release : 2013-05-21
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0762794380

GET BOOK

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.

Author : Doug Hoverson
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 14,78 MB
Release :
Category : Cooking
ISBN : 1452913374

GET BOOK

A visual history of MInnesota beers and breweries traces the evolution of the state's beer industry, from the 1849 construction of the first brewery to the growth of small-town enterprises that gave way to large companies of regional and national prominence, offering a comprehensive list of Minnesota breweries as well as more than three hundred illustrations of beer and breweriana.

Author : John Connell
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 41,89 MB
Release : 2019-05-07
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1328578003

GET BOOK

For fans of The Shepherd’s Life, a poignant memoir—and #1 Irish bestseller—about a wayward son’s return home to his family’s farm, and how he found a new beginning in an age-old world 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. Connell records the hypnotic rhythm of the farming day—cleaning the barns, caring for the herd, tending to sickly lambs, helping the cows give birth. Alongside the routine events, there are the unforeseen moments when things go wrong: when a calf fails to thrive, when a sheep goes missing, when illness breaks out, when an argument between father and son erupts and things are said that cannot be unsaid. The Farmer’s Son is the story of a calving season, and the story of a man who emerges from depression to find hope in the place he least expected to find it. It is the story of Connell's life as a farmer, and of his relationship with the community of County Longford, with his faith, with the animals he tends, and, above all, with his father.

Author :
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 48,4 MB
Release : 2008-06-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9780803217485

GET BOOK

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.

Author : Cris Peterson
Publisher : Boyds Mills Press
Page : 32 pages
File Size : 46,81 MB
Release : 2016-11-01
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 1629797839

GET BOOK

The Peterson family farm is one hundred years old and about to enter a new century. Here, in wonderful family anecdotes, the author shares the story of the farm as it grew from a barn and house and granary in the 1890s to a thriving dairy farm in the 1990s. There has been plenty of hard work--sawing down the trees to erect the first buildings, the endless cycle of planting and harvesting, chopping firewood to keep the house warm--but there has also been golf practice on the pasture land, Sunday drives in the family car, and cross-country skiing in the meadows. Over the past hundred years many things on the farm have changed, but many things have stayed the same. There is still one family working together to make the farm a viable business. There is still one kitchen where cookies are baked and meals are cooked to feed family and friends and those who help on the farm. Filled with photos selected from a century's worth of family albums as well as dramatic shots from recent years, this NCSS/CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book provides a glimpse into the past and the future of one American family farm.

Author : Dana Sullivan
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 47,54 MB
Release : 2018
Category : Agriculture
ISBN : 9780692155431

GET BOOK

Rocky, the dog, lives on the multi-generational Rhodes Family Farm. It's a busy place where his gal pal Dusty, her parents and grandparents work together to feed livestock and harvest grain. They do so with the help of their trusty farm equipment, each with its own name and personality.When Coretta the combine breaks down in the middle of harvest, Rocky saves the day by retrieving the one person who can fix her - Gramps.The book depicts the food production process from farm to grain elevator delivery to shipping to finished product. It tells the story of everyone working in harmony on a family farm to help feed the world and the equipment they use to do so.

Author : Lorraine Garkovich
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 18,54 MB
Release : 2021-12-14
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 0813193885

GET BOOK

The image of the family farm as storehouse of the traditional values that built this nation—self-reliance, resourcefulness, civic pride, family strength, concern for neighbors and community, honesty, and friendliness—persists, as many recent surveys show. But the reality of this rich tradition is rapidly changing, eroding the security once represented by these nostalgic images of rural America. Although the United States is still by far the world's leading overall producer of agricultural products, the number of American families making their livelihood through farming is much diminished, and if our demographers are correct, the number of family-operated farms is destined to fall still further in the coming decades as consolidation, cycles of boom and bust, and corporate invasions redefine who will farm the land. Harvest of Hope is a story of farm family life through the words of those who live it. The saga of the generations who have lived and worked on Basin Spring farm in western Kentucky is the thread that binds together the stories of eighty other farm families. They talk about their family businesses, their way of life, and the forces reshaping their lives. The challenges of making a living in farming either strengthen families or break them. Technology, government programs, and community changes that are supposed to be the hope for their future often come with unexpected drawbacks. The stories in this book—tales of growing up in farming, working in a multifamily business, juggling jobs on and off the farm, and struggling to maintain financial security and comfortable working relationships—reveal what American farming families know about hope and survival in a changing world. The authors offer a multifaceted view of the present situation, as well as suggestions for ways of enhancing the positive elements that have enriched and inspired Americans in the past. It is an analysis that highlights the myths and realities of a business and way of life that has a powerful hold on the American imagination. The reader comes away from this work with a clear idea of the tribulations farming families endure and the delicate balance between the spiritual and other rewards of farm life.