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

Coming from Storey, I expected a how-to book. This is not that, but rather a book of mindfulness, philosophy, music, musing, poetry, and the re-emergence of the most ancient of religions.

Six-and-a-half by seven-and-a-half inches, this little hardcover is full of artless art. Pages looking like notepages torn from spiral bound captivity, drawn paperclips, pictures of acorns, animals, trees, sugar mapling, and shearing tools abound. One page might be two large-writ bees on a flower stalk, another, sheet music in treble clef from which one can mentally hear the author on her fiddle.

I mentioned religion; Jenna has embraced the cycles of life, the seasons of the year, lambing, pulling milk from the udders of goats, the growth of winter coat on a horse, shearing. Once bound to a farm and the ancient rhythms impose themselves, evoking equally ancient responses in the farmer.

Vague as to financing, ongoing income, and other drearinesses, this fine little book is rich in loving immersion in a way of life, of neighborliness, in longing for an eventual partner and bedmate.

Even those tasks for which she has had to hire or barter for help are enriching for her. And for her readers, to which fortunate band I urge you to add yourself.