Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live off the Land, Kurt Timmermeister, 2011

The author moves from being a Seattle restaurant owner and devout urbanite to Voshan Island in Puget Sound where he buys a 13-acre overgrown piece of land and over 20 years becomes a farmer. While telling his story about keeping bees, raising a small (5) herd of Jersey cows for raw milk, co-op milk and cheese, raising sheep and pigs (slaughtering and butchering as well) and planting vegetables and an orchard, the author passes on an amazing amount of information and wisdom about the soul, animals, and farming. His Sunday dinner at Kurtwood Farm and his commercial cheese business keep the operation afloat, but it is his buoyant spirit of curiosity, hard work, and commitment to the land and his fellow animals that infuses this readable book with passion and energy. Fine book for anyone remotely interested in farming and the rural life.