The Seasons on Henry's Farm - Book 19

I really enjoyed reading The Seasons on Henry's Farm; A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm by Terra Brockman.  Henry is Terra's youngest brother who has taken over the job of running the family farm.  Terra moved away from the homestead to go to college and spent a good fifteen years living in cities and having a career before finally returning home to help her brother on the farm.  Because of the type of land, rolling hills rather than plains, the farm did not succumb to the move in the 1960's and 70's to become a single crop farm growing just corn or soybeans.  The land didn't lend itself to that type of farming, so though it did go through hard times then, because Terra's parents never really got on board with the 'modern' way to farm, it was very easy to restablish the farm as a sustainable, organic one.  In fact, much of their sustainable, organic practices are simply doing things the way their great grandparents did, on the farm.

Terra Brockman is a lovely writer.  She begins and ends the year's journey through farm life in November with the harvesting of the garlic.  She takes the reader through each season in great detail,  explaining the science, the history, the traditions, the relationships and the practicalities of farming this way.  It is a rich life full of beauty and also very hard work.  Exhausting work.  My back hurt just reading about all the endless hours spent in the fields sowing, weeding and harvesting.

This book reminded me a bit of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in that it embraces the organic, local food movement and in fact, its financial success relies on that.  The farm is a CSA and regularly sells its produce at the Evanston Farmers' Market.  Henry grows a wide variety of vegetables, starting very early in the season in his 'hoophouses' all the way through that final harvest in October.  Henry's wife is Japanese and he tends to grow a lot of Asian vegetables as well as many better known to Americans.  The farm is a family affair.  Terra's parents still help out, Henry's wife and children help as well. Terra, of course, and then another sister, Teresa, has a nearby fruit and herb farm, which is also part of the whole enterprise.  Terra's other siblings who have moved away from the area come to visit and help.  The farm also has apprentices who regularly live there in mobile homes during their time on the farm, learning earth friendly practices from Henry.

The book is also the story of Terra's family in one year.  Their ailing, 101 year old grandmother passes away.  Their father is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and spends weeks in the hospital after surgery and then slowly, slowly recovers once he is back home on the farm.  Terra and Teresa go on a business trip together to Poland to see if they can learn how to grown a berry called aronia and make it profitable.  The only country that really appreciates this wonderful, healthy berry is Poland for some reason.

The author's descriptions of the seasons are wonderful and mixed with many literary references.  Sometimes these felt a bit stretched to me.  Occasionally the author tried a little too hard, for instance in the chapter on corn which kept making references to corn p*rn.  Didn't quite work for me.  And she sometimes gets a little too effusive about the glories of farming.  Like Kingsolver, I got the impression that farming is practically a religion to Brockman.  There were a couple of jabs at more mainline religions, here and there, but not nearly as heavy handed as Kingsolver's.  And since I am not a farmer, some of the details in how they weed or harvest got a little too technical for me.  I don't even know what burdock is but harvesting it requires a complicated, sychronized digging of ditches which again made my back ache just reading about it.

I enjoyed spending a year with Terra Brockman's family though.  They are hardworking, decent, loving and warm.  I'm glad there are folks out there who can have this kind of dedication to sustainable, organic farming and are leading the way.  This book inspired me to go join a CSA, something I'd been meaning to do  but hadn't gotten around to.

I really felt much admiration for Henry.  He's the leader of the whole operation and comes across as a great man, very wise, who can manage the complexities in a calmly organized way.  He is the hardest working of them all and his family seems very close and sweet.

I read this book for free on my Kindle.  Someone I know on facebook alerted me to fact that there was a one day freebie opportunity.  However, the book is illustrated with photos which I could have appreciated more in a real book.

Two thumbs up!  For more book reviews go to 52 Books in 52 Weeks.