The Seasons on Henry's Farm: A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm

This is exactly what I thought Kingsolver's "Animal Vegetable Miracle" should be: a journal of personal experience day-to-day through a year of raising vegetables. Brockman brings farming alive, with all the sweat and aching joints, delight and dismay at the weather, savoring succulent peaches and sweet peas. I want to be there when the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon bursts open while being loaded on the truck, when the basil harvest fills the air with clouds of licorice-scented aroma, when the toppled oak tree is cut and innoculated with shiitake spawn. As she writes "We place our knees, feet, and hands in the freshly tilled soil, surrounded by sweet air and hillsides just starting to shimmer with the first buds of brown and gold show more edging into gray and green" (p. 151), "a good place where birds herald the sun, which brightens the sky and brings warmth and life to fields and field hands alike." (p. 269-270), and "The evening brings perspective... Standing on the earth, you know that you are a part of the same something that everything came from, ... and from which you can never be separated." (p. 229-230)
hmmm... I notice I didn't bookmark any of the passages on sweating under the sun or freezing fingers during fall work.

This is the account of her brother's farm, with snippets of her sister's farm on her grandparents' homestead. Family members, apprentices and friends all pitch in to make a go of it, growing and selling their produce at Evanston IL farmers' market and through CSA subscriptions. You learn lots of tips for extending the growing season and for the special needs of different crops. She includes at least one of her sister-in-law, Hiroko's recipes using seasonally harvested foods for every month.

The jacket describes this as "appealing to readers of Michael Pollan, E.B. White, Gretel Ehrlich, and Sandra Steingraber", so now I'll have to read those authors to see why. What else did E.B. White write besides the Wind in the Willows series? Although I can see the description of daily events entwined in the natural world as fitting.

Her English major background shows in her sprinkling of literary quotes, which she integrates into her musings. For example "...in this mote of quiet time after six nights of snow in a row, the words of Henry James come floating through my mind: 'To take what there is, and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived--to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that--this doubtless is the right way to live." This is the season for digging deep--not only into your own thoughts but into the earth, or in my case, into the storage pit down in the bottomland." (p. 99). Or, after writing about killing 2 pigs, quoting Euripides' Hecuba "And now you know: Life is held on loan. The price of life is death." (p.114) Or, while writing about harvesting herbs says "I think of Emily, in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, who is asked when she goes up to heaven what she misses most about earth. She answers, 'The smell of parsley.'" (p.253)
A final favorite part: learning about the culture & etymology of Wassail (p. 95).
2011 review show less

From alliums to zucchini, author Terra Brockman chronicles a year-long cycle of her brother's organic vegetable farm in central Illinois, with enticing side trips to the farm market that he sells at and to her sister's fruit farm. The writing at times is almost poetically hypnotic with it's descriptive prose and illustrations of the activities engaged in by all of her family and others throughout the growing spring, summer, and autumn seasons, and in mid-winter planning and dreaming sessions.
Triumphs and tragedy, successes and failures, highs and lows... all part of the cycle are embraced, evaluated, and incorporated into further advances of personal and communal knowledge.

As a person who majored in in biology in college and being an show more avid gardener (10? varieties of tomatoes and 6 of winter squashes/pumpkins in my garden last summer) I found that the descriptions of both the plants and animals in the principles's lives were honest and engaging.
As a former (dairy) farm hand in my teen years, the hard work and long days of the market farm endeavor was a refreshing journey back in time.
As an avid reader, I found that the author's mention of notable writers and works of literature was interesting and pleasant (Shakespeare's "The Tempest", Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Roald Dahl, Jack London).

Note to self: Get started planning the layout of this year's garden...
Note (2) to self: Read "Sand County Almanac"...
Note (3) to self: plant aronia berry bushes this spring... show less

This book was just a delight to read. Using as a guide the many seasons that farmers experience - as opposed to the merely 4 that we usually think of - Brockman takes us through a year of sustainable farming. It is a great companion book to Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and gives a close-up appreciation for how much work goes into the food you get at the farmers market. Recipes are included.

Beginning with the month of November and continuing for an entire year, we have a glimpse of Terra's brother's sustainable agriculture farm. Henry's farm is located in Illinois and provides fresh produce year-round for those involved in the CSA effort in that area. We get a glimpse of how things have changed over the years. There's quite a bit of work done on the farm, but for this family, it is a labor of love. A few recipes are included throughout the narrative using ingredients harvested that week or month. It is definitely an interesting read for those interested in growing their own foods or participating in CSA efforts throughout the country.