Audiobook7 hours
The Farmer's Son: Calving Season on a Family Farm
Written by John Connell
Narrated by Alan Smyth
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
About this audiobook
For fans of The Shepherd's Life, a poignant memoir-and #1 Irish bestseller-about a wayward son's return home to his family's farm, and how he found a new beginning in an age-old world
Farming has been in John Connell's family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Until, one winter, after more than a decade away, he finds himself back on the farm.
Connell records the hypnotic rhythm of the farming day-cleaning the barns, caring for the herd, tending to sickly lambs, helping the cows give birth. Alongside the routine events, there are the unforeseen moments when things go wrong: when a calf fails to thrive, when a sheep goes missing, when illness breaks out, when an argument between father and son erupts and things are said that cannot be unsaid.
The Farmer's Son is the story of a calving season, and the story of a man who emerges from depression to find hope in the place he least expected to find it. It is the story of Connell's life as a farmer, and of his relationship with the community of County Longford, with his faith, with the animals he tends, and, above all, with his father.
Farming has been in John Connell's family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Until, one winter, after more than a decade away, he finds himself back on the farm.
Connell records the hypnotic rhythm of the farming day-cleaning the barns, caring for the herd, tending to sickly lambs, helping the cows give birth. Alongside the routine events, there are the unforeseen moments when things go wrong: when a calf fails to thrive, when a sheep goes missing, when illness breaks out, when an argument between father and son erupts and things are said that cannot be unsaid.
The Farmer's Son is the story of a calving season, and the story of a man who emerges from depression to find hope in the place he least expected to find it. It is the story of Connell's life as a farmer, and of his relationship with the community of County Longford, with his faith, with the animals he tends, and, above all, with his father.
Related to The Farmer's Son
Related audiobooks
Unearthed: Love, Acceptance, and Other Lessons from an Abandoned Garden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPastoral Song Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waiting for Aphrodite: Journeys into the Time before Bones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shepherd's View: Modern Photographs From an Ancient Landscape Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pig Tales: An Omnivore's Quest for Sustainable Meat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gaining Ground: A Story of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, and Saving the Family Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Planter of Modern Life: Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Seed Detective: Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOur Native Bees: North America's Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grass-Fed Beef for a Post-Pandemic World: How Regenerative Grazing Can Restore Soils and Stabilize the Climate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMonarchs and Milkweed: A Migrating Butterfly, a Poisonous Plant, and Their Remarkable Story of Coevolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Swamplands: Tundra Beavers, Quaking Bogs, and the Improbable World of Peat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Return of the Bison: A Story of Survival, Restoration, and a Wilder World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBee People and the Bugs They Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlat Broke with Two Goats: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Making Eden: How Plants Transformed a Barren Planet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chasing Lakes: Love, Science, and the Secrets of the Arctic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wild at Heart: America's Turbulent Relationship with Nature, from Exploitation to Redemption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Agriculture For You
Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Permaculture for the Rest of Us: Abundant Living on Less than an Acre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soil Science for Gardeners: Working with Nature to Build Soil Health Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim our Health Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Restoration Agriculture: Real-World Permaculture for Farmers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Building Your Permaculture Property: A Five-Step Process to Design and Develop Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Start Your Farm: The Authoritative Guide to Becoming a Sustainable 21st Century Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army and Other Diabolical Insects Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trees of Power: Ten Essential Arboreal Allies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seed Detective: Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cannabis: Step-By-Step Guide on How to Grow Marijuana for Beginners Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holistic Homesteading: A Guide to a Sustainable and Regenerative Lifestyle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gaining Ground: A Story of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, and Saving the Family Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flat Broke with Two Goats: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Native Bees: North America's Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cannabis For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beekeeping For Dummies: 4th Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Farmer's Son
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
9 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I may be very wrong about this, but when I read a book written by a knowledgeable Irish farmer who raises beef cattle (and he tells us their breeds), I have to wonder why the cover photo is of Holsteins (dairy cows). But never mind, that's not Connell's fault. Just saying.
I loved James Rebanks' "The Shepherd's Life," so hoped for something like. Sort of, but well short.
John Connell, at 29, has returned to his family farm in Ireland - in return for a place to live and write, back with his aging parents, he works - oh lord, how he works - to help run the farm. He has lived in Canada, in Australia, been a journalist and a film producer, and now is back home, in a strangely enervated state. Now he births calves and lambs, and often watches them sicken and die. He moves manure, hauls feed, suffers from relentlessly cold and drenching weather, and fights with his self-righteous, demanding, ill-tempered old man. Or tries not to, with varying success. He seems to be pretty miserable. In what little he reveals of his previous life, he sounds like he was miserable then too. The tone of the writing is almost unfailingly affectless, flat, objective. He describes horrifically difficult births and diseases that nearly - or do - kill cows, ewes, and/or their offspring, in the same emotional register as he describes the ancient history of aurochs. He recalls a bullfight he attended in Spain, blandly depicting the torture of the bull and noting in Hemingwayesque language how "taut and strong" the matador's legs were, his turns "true and brave." (ugh) He also notes that his fiancee wouldn't eat the meat from the dead bull, but passes zero comment or judgment. He writes about a morally monstrous big game hunter in Australia in carefully neutered terms. Has he *no* emotional or moral reaction to these things? He can and does approach tenderness when he manages to rescue a dying animal, and speaks of reading the nature of a cow when he looks into her eyes. The animals are individuals (though they do not give them names), whom he knows, respects, and cares for. He decries American factory farming, and muses that if he takes over the farm, he would want to go the organic route, and clings to the European style of small-scale farms that allows the animals to live healthy, decent lives, well-treated to the end. And yet... when he and his father have a nasty blowup, he seems to have little qualm about retreating to his room and refusing to undertake any chores, leaving his Da and Mam to take care of everything, even when a lambing goes wrong, all in the name of "standing up for himself." He manages to overlook dead or dying stock in trouble in the field, he doesn't get around to checking on a group of cows in a distant pasture even as their food runs short (they're fine, he reports when his mother angrily orders him to go out there). He goes for long runs, he talks philosophy with the local priest. He broods.
It is finally revealed that he has emerged from a 6-month stint of deep depression and mania, and is just finding his feet. Though he professes to find his life on the farm beautiful and important, and intends to try to continue to be both a farmer and a writer, this anhedonic, almost anesthetized, book isn't encouraging. Yes, it's probably honest; it's small Irish farming warts and all. But as he seems to be so lacking in emotion as he explores it, he failed to evoke much emotion in me either. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An intimate look into one family's traditional cattle and sheep ranch in rural Ireland. An unusually beautiful account of a very demanding way of life. I leave the book with a new appreciation for cows and bulls.