Missi Jennings has no family, with the exception of her cold, critical mother, who makes her feel like a perpetual disappointment. She muddles through life in Washington, D.C. despondent, yet unmotivated to do anything about it. When a horrific accident on a Downtown street leaves Missi shaken, numb, and wealthy beyond her wildest imagination, it also becomes a catalyst for unthinkable change, launching her on a journey to a place completely foreign to her . . . rural Mississippi. The cynical, solitary city girl must confront a lifetime of lies created by the woman she always knew to be her mother and contend with a large, loud, extended family she had no idea existed. Missi's fortitude is tested by strange new surroundings and a disinterested grandfather, but it is a child-like woman with Down syndrome, with whom Missi shares an unbreakable bond, that changes her the most. Buying the Farm is a poignant story about loss and gain, and both the joy and pain that come from being a part of a family.

A candid and heartwarming memoir of reinvention about a city girl who trades her career and her heels for five acres and a herd of goats “Jake Keiser is my favorite kind of woman—gutsy, tenacious, and not afraid to be vulnerable. And the animals are pretty f*cking adorable, too.”—Tara Schuster, author of Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies Jake Keiser was living the life in Tampa, Florida, running a high-powered PR firm and juggling drink dates, shopping sprees, and charity galas. But at age thirty-eight, following a failed marriage, a series of miscarriages, and a still-blistering breakup, she began to suffer from extreme anxiety. Hit with the realization that no amount of Botox could fill the hole in her heart, she decided to make the impulse purchase of a lifetime and bought a farm in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi. Suddenly responsible for more than seventy-five animals and five acres of land, and with only one bar of cell service, Jake begins her search for inner peace. She learns to fix a well, haul wood, shoot a gun, and care for baby chicks, goats, turkeys, geese, dogs, and a cat, playing spa music for them when they’re sick and naming them after her favorite fashion designers. The only problem is that she still can’t figure out how to truly care for herself. Unable to escape the accumulated pain of her past, Jake hits rock bottom. With nowhere left to run, she’s finally forced to confront a bracing reality: The farm won’t save her. Only she can save herself. Poignant, hilarious, and utterly charming, Daffodil Hill is for anyone who feels stuck—for those of us strapped to our desks and dreaming of an unconventional life, for those of us searching for something more. Most of all, it is for people who believe that the greatest love story of all is the one we write with ourselves.

This book tells the story of Montague Farm, an early back-to-the land communal experiment in western Massachusetts, from its beginning in 1968 through the following thirty-five years of its surprisingly long life. Drawing on his own experience as a resident of the farm from 1969 to 1973 and decades of contact with the farm's extended family, Tom Fels provides an insightful account of the history of this iconic alternative community. He follows its trajectory from its heady early days as a pioneering outpost of the counterculture through many years of change, including a period of renewed political activism and, later, increasing episodes of conflict between opposing factions to determine what the farm represented and who would control its destiny. With deft individual portraits, Fels reveals the social dynamics of the group and explores the ongoing difficulties faced by a commune that was founded in idealism and sought to operate on the model of a leaderless democracy. He draws on a large body of farm-family and 1960s-related writing and the notes of community members to present a variety of points of view. The result is an absorbing narrative that chronicles the positive aspects of Montague Farm while documenting the many challenges and disruptions that marked its history.

Small Farmer's Journal is after a new view of involvement, ownership, craftsmanship, and the understandable/mysterious seeds of magic. They also seek the craft of good farming and the faith that comes of thankful farming. Small Farmer's Journal wants to be defenders and agents of and for good farming and they realize that they are a small endeavor with small consequences.This large, illustrated book offers some uniquely modern and helpful information geared toward assisting people to land a new small farm operation of their own. Beginning with the what fors and where fors, and walking carefully through the pitfalls and challenges of the looking and buying process, this book could save the prospective farm buyer time, money, and headache.

This “must-read” memoir of human-scale agriculture offers an insider’s view of today’s food system by a leading voice in sustainable farming (Daniel Boulud). After years of working at the ends of the earth in human rights and development, Brent Preston and his wife were die-hard city dwellers. But when their second child arrived, the shine came off urban living. In 2003 they bought a hundred acres and a rundown farmhouse, determined to build a farm that would sustain their family, nourish their community, heal their environment—and turn a profit. The New Farm is Preston’s memoir of a decade of toil and perseverance. Farming is a complex and precarious business, and they made plenty of mistakes along the way. But as they learned how to grow food, and to succeed at the business of farming, they also found that a small, sustainable, organic farm could be an engine for change, a path to a more just and sustainable food system. Today, The New Farm supplies top restaurants, supports community food banks, hosts events with leading chefs, and grows extraordinary produce. Told with humor and heart, The New Farm is a joy, a passionate book by an important new voice.

Buying the Farm captures a newsworthy topic of the day: the fight for survival by America's family farmers against the power and influence of corporate farming. While written as a novel, it is rooted in the truth of an actual lawsuit. The roles of environmental activist groups for good and bad are woven into the struggle, as are the voices of outdoor journalists, informed or uninformed, and the power of the U.S. Forest Service and the Justice Department, whether manipulated or fighting righteously. Passions run high, for good and for the nefarious. Amidst the raging power and passion, Bell Marshall, a lone lawyer, battles conscience-less corporate greed and governmental corruption to save not only the land of eighty-five family farmers but a treasured way of life in America's heartland. In the nation's heartland quiet prevails as farm families, in America's finest tradition, stoically face the tribulations of the Life they have chosen and will never trade. Just as quietly an agricultural corporate giant conceives and launches a vicious campaign to steal their land, seducing a Forest Service director into using his environmental authority to accomplish their malicious agenda. Family farmers are unarmed while corporate agriculture arms to the teeth, journalists and environmental groups move to inflame public opinion and the government's unmatchable firepower readies itself. Bell Marshall is all that stands in the way of the conspirators, some knowing, some duped. It should be no contest. Marshall fights hard, believing that American courts are the great equalizer between powerful interests and small voices. As he strives to get the farmers their day in court, his corporate/government adversary campaigns to poison the well of justice before the farmers arrive. It takes a monumental effort for Bell to prepare the case and a cat's agility to stay the battle. And even with that, neither side is prepared for an eleventh hour revelation that ignites a searing conclusion that alters the lives of people, affects the humane treatment of animals and preserves the land in America's heartland for every wise use.

One fateful day in 1996, upon discovering that five freight cars’ worth of glittering corn have reaped a tiny profit of $18.16, young Forrest Pritchard undertakes to save his family’s farm. What ensues—through hilarious encounters with all manner of livestock and colorful local characters—is a crash course in sustainable agriculture. Pritchard’s biggest ally is his renegade father, who initially questions his career choice and eschews organic foods for sugary mainstream fare; but just when the farm starts to turn heads at local markets, his father’s health takes a turn for the worse.With poetry and humor, this timely memoir tugs on the heartstrings and feeds the soul long after the last page is turned.