One Farm Woman: My Life Shared with Sheep, Pigs, Chickens, Goats and a Fine Fiddle

How I hate it when a loved book ends.  I want it to go on and on.  And it happens over and over to me as I immerse myself in the fictional narrative, or in this case, in Jenna Woginrich's story.  It is her singular story as she escapes from the cubicle in a city and strikes out on her own in the country, finding Cold Antler Farm to lay down her roots.

She is a blogger and this book draws from her journals and writings, and her beloved lyrics of fiddle songs and country diddies.  She tells her tale within the framework of the seasons: a year in upstate New York.  She chronicles the seasons as they come upon her, with all the responsibilities she embraces as well as the solitude and camaraderie of like-minded people.

Ok...  I face the fact that I will never have a farm to call my own nor face the changing of the seasons with my pitchfork and woodstove.  But I love living vicariously with her stories of challenges and mastery as she does it on her own.

There's no family.  No boyfriend.  Just a girl and her wolf pack
and her farm full of animals. 

 It's perfect and imperfect.  Full and empty.
Validating and terrifying.
Above it all, it is just as I want it to be.  -- Jenna Woginrich

The book is beautiful as many Storey Publishing books are. Their mission is to "serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages independence in harmony with the environment"  So it does.  The end papers of this "sustainably harvested fiber" pages take you to her farm...and the drawings draw the reader in...imagining what it is really like there.  The book designer Carlyn Eckert provides a book that feels like the author's journal, it feels intimate in your hands, whether you are reading it in a hammock, or as I do, in my spa at night, nursing my broken arm.  Emma Dibben's illustrations complement the tale that Jenna weaves in a way that draws the reader in...to enjoy the words as well as the whole experience.  You read, experience the illustrations, and then turn the page to enjoy another adventure.

Thank you, Jenna, Carlyn, Emma...  now the problem is that I was going to honor my resolution not to purchase any more books this year...and to read those in my ladened bookshelves.  But her other books call me...Barnhart, Chick Days, and Made from Scratch.  They are now on my Amazon wishlist...and perhaps, just perhaps, they will be a gift to me.  That doesn't violate my resolution now, does it?