Farm Memoir

Matt Baker's first ever book is a diary of the natural year and a glimpse into family life on the farm, peppered with moments from his TV career throughout. Away from the bright lights of hosting our favourite television programmes, Countryfile, The One Show, Blue Peter and many more, Matt Baker is happiest on the farm with his family, dogs, array of sheep, Mediterranean miniature donkeys and a whole host of wildlife in the farm's ancient woodland.

On a dark winter’s night in January 1898, the head cowman at the Express Dairy Company’s College Farm was shot dead. The picturesque dairy farm located on Regent’s Park Road in Finchley provided the unlikely crime scene. The victim, Thomas Webb, had no known enemies but eerily had predicted the shocking event.

This sequel to If You Leave This Farm chronicles the life adventures of this young Mennonite lady who, after choosing to walk away from her fathers farm at age 29, is now free to make her own choices as an adult. Amanda shares the joy of discovering the world away from the farm, of falling in love, and about her decision to eventually leave the Mennonite church. But that freedom and joy is tainted by the continuing intertwined and overpowering conflicts that result from unspoken and unresolved expectations in her family of origin.

In Tales from the Farm by the Yorkshire Shepherdess, Amanda takes listeners on an evocative journey to Ravenseat, where she lives with husband Clive and their nine children, not to mention their flock of sheep, herd of cows, hardworking dogs and a formidable chicken called Linda.

Meet a pygmy goat who rides on top of a pony, marvel at flying lizards delivering messages, participate in a bloody rock-fight, sleep in a nudist colony cardboard box for two, witness the resurrection of a guinea pig, experience rattlesnake jewelry made before your very eyes, behold how a dead seal can save a family from a watery death.... But wait, that's not all. Ducks, dogs, cats, tortoises, horses, chickens, two best friends, two siblings, and two parents complete the picture, and, lest you think it was all fun and games: thousands and thousands of flies.

British mother Rosie Ayliffe thought her 21-year-old daughter, Mia, would be safe travelling around Australia on a gap year. But Mia wanted to extend her visa and in order to do that needed to find 88 days of work on a farm - a requirement that would lead to catastrophic events. Four short days after Mia moved to a hostel in Queensland to take a job on a sugarcane farm, she was brutally murdered.

Sally Urwin and her husband, Steve, own High House Farm in Northumberland, which they share with Mavis the sheepdog, one very fat pony and many, many sheep. Set in beautiful, wild landscape, and in use for generations, it's the perfect setting for Sally's (sometimes brutally) honest and charming account of farming life. From stock sales to lambing sheds, and out in the fields in snow and on hot summer days, A Farmer's Diary reveals the highs, lows and hard work involved in making a living from the land.

The book begins by biographically following the couple's small town Kansas courtship. Autobiographical comments are added from Tommy Johnson, now 94, as he reflects back on his romance with Margaret, his wife of 50 years. The letters shift from college to entering the fight after Pearl Harbor, then flight school, naval training, and eventually to his dive bombing missions in the South Pacific. Until, at last, the final letter that he is gratefully coming home to drive her around town in a Buick convertible.

Suzy Lowry Geno walks the hills and creek side of Old Field Farm seeking a simpler peace-filled life like those of her grandparents and great-grandparents, who worked those acres before her. But as she finally began to rest in the true joys of faith, family, and slower living, she was forced back into the realities of the world of technology in the struggle to save her husband's life. Join her in Simple Times at Old Field Farm as she emerges triumphantly on the mountainside "keeping her hands busy and her heart open."

George Topp believed in God, but often relied on himself when making and carrying out decisions. He was not inclined to ask God for help, but May 3, 2004 was the day that he found out he powerless. That day on his farm near Grace City, North Dakota, started out like any other. He had a half-dozen cows left to calf, and he was also seeding barley. Everything was going fine, until his truck would not start.

Suzy was content in her simple life, tending her animals, writing about her homestead and her simple life in the most southern foothills of the Appalachian Mountains...but God had much more in store. Suzy went from being a long time widow to newly-wed Suzy Lowry McCray at age 65 when she married her high school sweetheart.... Listen to their spiritual journey as life continues to change for this "young" couple in this her third book, God in the Simple Times and then enjoy some of the best loved columns from Suzy's first two books.