Farm Memoir

It’s the summer of 2005, and Mardi Jo Link’s dream of living the simple life has unraveled into debt, heartbreak, and perpetually ragged cuticles. She and her husband of nineteen years have just called it quits, leaving her with serious cash-flow problems and a looming divorce. More broke than ever, Link makes a seemingly impossible resolution: to hang on to her century-old farmhouse in northern Michigan and continue to raise her three boys on well water and wood chopping and dirt. Armed with an unfailing sense of humor and three resolute accomplices, Link confronts blizzards and foxes, learns about Zen divorce and the best way to butcher a hog, dominates a zucchini-growing contest and wins a year’s supply of local bread, masters the art of bargain cooking, wrangles rampaging poultry, and withstands any blow to her pride in order to preserve the life she wants.

The long pilgrimage of LeRoy Chatfield weaves its way through multiple collective projects designed to better the condition of the marginalized and forgotten. From the cloisters of the Christian Brothers and the halls of secondary education to the fields of Central California and the streets of Sacramento, Chatfield's story reveals a fierce commitment to those who were denied the promises of the American dream. Chatfield recounts his childhood, explains the social issues that have played a significant role in his life and work, and uncovers the lack of justice he saw too frequently.

This sequel to If You Leave This Farm chronicles the life adventures of this young Mennonite lady who, after choosing to walk away from her fathers farm at age 29, is now free to make her own choices as an adult. Amanda shares the joy of discovering the world away from the farm, of falling in love, and about her decision to eventually leave the Mennonite church. But that freedom and joy is tainted by the continuing intertwined and overpowering conflicts that result from unspoken and unresolved expectations in her family of origin.

Tom Rivers, a reporter for The Daily News in Batavia, wrote a first-person series about farm work in 2008 that won state and national awards. Now the series, with more background and other information, has been compiled in a newly released audiobook, Farm Hands: Hard Work and Hard Lessons from Western New York Fields. Rivers worked at a dozen farms in Orleans and Genesee counties, trying to find out why so few local residents are willing to work on farms. He discovered the work requires many skills, enormous willpower and physical strength.

The philosophy found in this work is the product of a childhood on a tobacco and cattle farm in central Kentucky, education at various schools, and a three-decade career in the US Navy while simultaneously contributing as a husband, father, and grandfather. The remainder of this book will be separated into phases reflective of the major changes in my life: the farm, schooling, and a navy career continuum from junior officer through flag officer. The lessons learned in earlier phases were often exported and applied later.

In the early hours of 7th August 1985, five members of the Bamber family were shot dead with a .22-calibre Anschutz rifle. Sheila Caffell, who was known to have struggled with mental illness, was at first thought to have murdered her twin sons and adoptive parents and then to have turned the gun on herself. Forensic evidence, however, told a different story and raised such questions as how Sheila could have received two shots in an act of suicide. A year later it was Jeremy Bamber, the only survivor, who was convicted of the callous murders of his entire family.

Born-and-raised Johns Island resident Lee Glover tells the story of the evolution of his home from a rural agrarian setting to a rapidly changing sea island of the Low Country. Traditionally, Johns Island produced millions of pounds of fresh produce that was shipped all across America every year. Each summer, migrants and workers of all description, and in numbers sometimes surpassing the island's total population, flocked to participate in the harvest.

Miss Unlikely takes you through Betty’s unconventional childhood, the surprising pageant journey, an incredible year as Miss America, a fairy-tale wedding, and everything in between. She offers wisdom on school, boys, self-esteem, choices, disappointments, insecurities, mentors, cyberbullies, and more. Behind-the-scenes moments and previously untold stories show how her faith and family ultimately carried her through difficult times. Betty’s personal and sincere account will remind you the only way to get where you want to go is through God’s unique plan.

Peter Brandt, a litigator at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), has been at the forefront of some of the toughest cases of animal abuse in the last 10 years - including supervising a team of lawyers working to protect the interests of farm animals. In this revelatory and often surprisingly funny memoir-cum-manifesto, Brandt describes his growing awareness of the extent of the cruelty of animals in concentrated animal feeding operations (a.k.a. factory farms) and the manifold harms to human health, local communities, and the environment for those who live near them.

Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl delivers a treat as delicious as oatmeal cookies hot out of the oven - a memoir of a happy childhood. In charming and memorable vignettes, Carol Bodensteiner captures rural life in Middle America, in the middle of the 20th Century. Bodensteiner grew up on a family-owned dairy farm in the 1950s, a time when a family could make a good living on 180 acres.

In Laughing at Myself: My Education in Congress, on the Farm, and at the Movies, Dan Glickman tells his story of a classical family background, religious heritage, and "Midwestern-nice" roots, and how it led to a long and successful career in public service. Dan has successfully navigated the worlds of congressional politics, cabinet-level administration, and the entertainment industry and offers listeners the many tricks of the trade he has learned over the years.

These stories begin with brief family histories that bring the Peltier and the Scottish Keillor families together. John was the fifth of the 12 children that Wilburn and Barbara Peltier raised on the flat salt grass prairie of Southeast Texas after they married. The life they created for their family on their rice farm and cattle ranch provided fertile ground for the life experiences that are shared in these settings. At the age of 19, naïve and fresh from the farm, John was drafted into the US Army. After surviving boot camp and medical corpsman training, he found himself in Vietnam.

This audiobook is narrated by Max Armstrong, one of America's favorite farm broadcasters. Max traveled thousands of miles by air and ground to hear the stories of the men and women of the Heartland. Armed with endless curiosity and a winning personality, Max visited farmers and producers at their kitchen tables, tractors, and combines.

The book begins by biographically following the couple's small town Kansas courtship. Autobiographical comments are added from Tommy Johnson, now 94, as he reflects back on his romance with Margaret, his wife of 50 years. The letters shift from college to entering the fight after Pearl Harbor, then flight school, naval training, and eventually to his dive bombing missions in the South Pacific. Until, at last, the final letter that he is gratefully coming home to drive her around town in a Buick convertible.

Suzy was content in her simple life, tending her animals, writing about her homestead and her simple life in the most southern foothills of the Appalachian Mountains...but God had much more in store. Suzy went from being a long time widow to newly-wed Suzy Lowry McCray at age 65 when she married her high school sweetheart.... Listen to their spiritual journey as life continues to change for this "young" couple in this her third book, God in the Simple Times and then enjoy some of the best loved columns from Suzy's first two books.

Set in the Dust Bowl of the American West, this true account of a child coming of age on a 1920s Nebraska farm recaptures an era. Young Lucille Marker experiences survival during the Depression, one of the worst dust storms in history, and finally the disintegration of the close-knit community in which she grows up.

George Topp believed in God, but often relied on himself when making and carrying out decisions. He was not inclined to ask God for help, but May 3, 2004 was the day that he found out he powerless. That day on his farm near Grace City, North Dakota, started out like any other. He had a half-dozen cows left to calf, and he was also seeding barley. Everything was going fine, until his truck would not start.

Meet a pygmy goat who rides on top of a pony, marvel at flying lizards delivering messages, participate in a bloody rock-fight, sleep in a nudist colony cardboard box for two, witness the resurrection of a guinea pig, experience rattlesnake jewelry made before your very eyes, behold how a dead seal can save a family from a watery death.... But wait, that's not all. Ducks, dogs, cats, tortoises, horses, chickens, two best friends, two siblings, and two parents complete the picture, and, lest you think it was all fun and games: thousands and thousands of flies.

Suzy Lowry Geno walks the hills and creek side of Old Field Farm seeking a simpler peace-filled life like those of her grandparents and great-grandparents, who worked those acres before her. But as she finally began to rest in the true joys of faith, family, and slower living, she was forced back into the realities of the world of technology in the struggle to save her husband's life. Join her in Simple Times at Old Field Farm as she emerges triumphantly on the mountainside "keeping her hands busy and her heart open."

Hop aboard a hippie bus and journey with 300 New Age settlers on their way to Tennessee to begin a new life and a new lifestyle, a meaningful lifestyle the world can afford - to live collectively, build a town and live simple, live close to nature - a remarkable experiment in collective living as thousands of high-minded people with heart join forces, pool resources, and attempt to create a gracious, meaningful, sustainable lifestyle.