Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0395730988, Hardcover)

Four and a half million people read The Old Farmer's Almanac each year, and for fourteen years, the essays of Castle Freeman, Jr., have been a prominent feature. Freeman delights in Vermont through every season of the year, observing and participating in what happens inside the countryman's mind and outside it. He has something to say about all aspects of modern country life, from rototillers and chain saws to rabbits and raccoons, from day lilies to maple sugar, from snow on the roof to mice in the woodpile. He finds much in nature on which to draw a moral: "Woodpeckers make other birds look like triflers. Their lives have a complexity and purpose that reminds us of ourselves." Writing in the parallel traditions of Gilbert White and Benjamin Franklin, Freeman evokes a way of life sufficiently challenging to be exciting, sufficiently quiet to be philosophical, sufficiently varied to be fun. This book is for pleasure, to roll over in the mind in city and country alike, a book to keep by