A surprisingly good autobiography about a man who gives up his city life to become a farmer. With details about how to raise cows, chickens, and the rest, you come away feeling like you could do it too. ( )

A small self-sufficient farm was not Timmermeister's goal twenty years ago when he bought the plot that would become Kurtwood Farms. He was a successful Seattle chef with a growing restaurant (given that he specialized in pastries and kept bees on the roof, I can't help but picture the Pie Hole from Pushing Daisies). He bought the original 4 acres simply because as soon as he could afford a house he wanted to get the hell out of his studio apartment. But even twenty years ago the price of Seattle real estate was astronomical, so despite the prosperity of his restaurant he was forced to look outside the Emerald City for his new home.

Timmermeister ended up buying a 500 SF house (built as a chicken coop in the 1950s) on 4 acres on Vashon Island for $100,000. Apparently Vashon in the 1990s was not the super-gentrified fancy-pants Vashon I know now, because a bare 1/4-acre lot there these days would cost easily four times what Timmermeister paid for his initial acreage. At the time of the purchase, Timmermeister, a lifetime resident of Seattle, could not drive and did not own a car, so he had the real estate agent meet him at the ferry dock. He recalls her starting her claptrap car with a screwdriver. She's probably driving a Lexus now.

Kurtwood Farms grew up organically around Timmermeister, initially almost without his noticing. He bought the neighboring 8 acres when it came up for sale, but mostly out of land lust and not any specific plan to farm. He began to plant what became an orchard, one tree at a time, with randomly selected varieties. He bought a tractor because it was handy. His first sheep were given to him by friends who changed their minds about sheep ranching. Eventually, playing at farming led to real farming – replete with sheep, vegetable garden, beef, pigs, cows, and a raw-milk dairy. As his love for the farm began to eclipse his one-time love for the restaurant, he sold the café and set out to make his living from the farm.

Today Timmermeister makes his living by selling the artisanal cheeses he makes from his Jersey cows' milk and hosting weekly farm dinners at which city chefs make seasonal feasts from the farm's bounty for paying visitors.

In the final pages of the book Timmermeister seems to speak directly to me – the then administrator of a blog with the subtitle “Inching Toward Self-Sufficiency” and also the author of a college essay in which my use of the word “asymptotically” caused my instructor and I to lose all respect for each other in the first week of the class (long story). He refers to the farm's journey to self-sufficiency using the same calculus terminology of perpetually approaching without ever actually arriving. He says he's perfectly content with that.
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I read this book several years ago, but having lived on Vashon Island, and enjoying eating a selection of good, locally grown, organic foods, I was given the book to read, and I still remembers it vividly. It is definitely worth reading if you are interested in the source of your food, or hobby farming. ( )

Disclaimer: I review books on how they stand alone without regards to anyone’s personal views about the author. I review based upon readability and how the book affects my life for good, and less upon literary style.

I loved the common sense approach that the author presents his material. He doesn't get on a soap box and preach. Instead, he gives examples of what he has done to make his little corner of the world a better place. I love the detail that the author gives to the every day running of a farm. I grew up on a farm, so I can relate, but there is no way I could articulate what it means to live on a farm as nearly as elegantly as the author does. This book is a treasure. It brings back fond memories of the farm, and it also brings back memories of other books I have read like Farmer Boy and Little Britches.

Thank you, Kurt Timmermeister.

But, I found the book to be about much more than just farming. For one, it is a great testament of the need to have a purpose in life, even in retirement. He speaks of when he was searching for a farm to buy, he came across a farm for sale from an old man who only began farming as he retired and lived well into his nineties. "I want to believe that if he had kept milking fifty cows daily he would have lived forever. It wasn't his farm that I yearned for - it was his life. My retirement plan is now to always have a dairy cow on my land... I like the idea of needing to be out of bed in the morning for a specific reason, every day, even if it is raining or snowing or if I am just tired. Some people keep doing crossword puzzles to keep their mind thinking and active; I plan on milking cows."

For another, the book is about doing the right things for the land in a common sense way. Instead of going into extremes, he believes in doing what one CAN do, and that extremism only leads to counter-productivity. He spoke of the Zeno paradox in Calculus where we never quite reach the destination. "As we approach that imagined terminus, increasing effort must be exerted. There have been a glut of books and blogs recently that make this challenge into a game. A 'One-hundred-mile diet' is one premise: you limit your food purchases to those things that are produced or grown within 100 miles of your locale. I find it all rather silly. The point isn't to find that final sigma that signals that you are at the finishing line, but rather to head down that path."

For another, the author speaks of, and gives many examples of using a common sense approach to self-sufficiently using everything on the farm and limit the input of items, especially food, to a limited amount of goods. As far as food, the only staples he buys are flour, sugar, salt, and pepper. "It is a different way to cook; a different way to eat. Seasonal and always fresh, a farm dinner could be said to be the ultimate in local eating. This is how I like to eat. I need to see the animal that will eventually be my dinner. I want to pull the carrots from the soil the morning that they will be cooked for the evening meal. The cream, the milk, the cheese, the butter that grace the dinner table come from a cow with a name familiar to be: Dinah, Boo, Lily.

And finally, the most important concept taught in this book is stewardship. The author claims that he isn't particularly religious, but I find in him the epitome of what religion should be all about, and that is the realization that the earth has been created for our good by a loving God, and that we don't own it, rather we are stewards, or "lords" if you will of the earth. "This farm has a place. It has standing. And a great deal of high-quality food comes from this soil... I must be a steward for this land, protect the soil, improve the soil, leave these acres in better condition than when I arrived. And not worry if I have the right boots, the right jeans, the right truck. As I began to work on the land, clearing scrubby trees, improving the soil, I started to feel a responsibility toward it. I am protective of this parcel, possessive of it, but I am aware that I do not own it. No one can own land. We are all mere stewards of the land. I have an obligation to pass this farm on to someone in better condition than when I first set foot on it. I want to leave it cleaner, less polluted and more productive when it's my time to go." ( )

Enjoyable and understandable text about farm life. I could see myself barging into alot of the situations he gets himself into. As I also want cows, goats, sheep and the list goes on. The author tells you the good and the bad about farm life. He doesn't just gloss over the eventuals as some of this type books do. I did not really care for his bee chapter..Just letting the bees die. (I'm scared of bees-so that hasn't been one of my want to do's) I mean if you are responsible for them shouldn't you at least try and keep your charges alive? That to me is part of the farm lifestyle. ( )