Available:*
Material Type | Library | Call Number | Item Barcode | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library | 636.2 YOUNG | 31478010111319 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Lowell - Pollard Memorial Library | 636.2 YOU | 31481005324467 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Manchester-by-the-Sea Public Library | 636.2 YOU 2018 | 32124001842665 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Methuen - Nevins Memorial Library | 636.2 YOU | 31548003188654 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Newburyport Public Library | 636.2 YOU | 32128003668713 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Rockport Public Library | 636.2 YOUNG | 32129002284049 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... West Newbury - G.A.R. Memorial Library | 636.2 YOU | 32135001417118 | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
"Within a day of receiving this book, I had consumed it... Absorbing, moving, and compulsively readable."--Lydia Davis
In this affectionate, heart-warming chronicle, Rosamund Young distills a lifetime of organic farming wisdom, describing the surprising personalities of her cows and other animals
At her famous Kite's Nest Farm in Worcestershire, England, the cows (as well as sheep, hens, and pigs) all roam free. They make their own choices about rearing, grazing, and housing. Left to be themselves, the cows exhibit temperaments and interests as diverse as our own. "Fat Hat" prefers men to women; "Chippy Minton" refuses to sleep with muddy legs and always reports to the barn for grooming before bed; "Jake" has a thing for sniffing the carbon monoxide fumes of the Land Rover exhaust pipe; and "Gemima" greets all humans with an angry shake of the head and is fiercely independent.
An organic farmer for decades, Young has an unaffected and homely voice. Her prose brims with genuine devotion to the wellbeing of animals. Most of us never apprehend the various inner lives animals possess, least of all those that we might eat. But Young has spent countless hours observing how these creatures love, play games, and form life-long friendships. She imparts hard-won wisdom about the both moral and real-world benefits of organic farming. (If preserving the dignity of animals isn't a good enough reason for you, consider how badly factory farming stunts the growth of animals, producing unhealthy and tasteless food.)
This gorgeously-illustrated book, which includes an original introduction by the legendary British playwright Alan Bennett, is the summation of a life's work, and a delightful and moving tribute to the deep richness of animal sentience.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Reflecting on over 30 years as a cattle farmer in Worcestershire, England, Young muses on her herd members' inner lives and shares best practices for keeping them happy and healthy in her appealing, if somewhat disorganized, book. Her contention that "every animal has a limitless ability to experience a whole range of emotions" is demonstrated through anecdotes of her cows engaging in familial love and bonding, play, and even grief. These include a touching story about a young cow seeking out her mother for comfort after giving birth to a stillborn calf; a mother who held a grudge against Young for three years for taking away her sick calf; and a mischievous cow that amused herself by removing the same workman's cap every time she saw him. Young also makes a case for the species' intelligence, as evinced in their ability to make healthy eating choices. Her prose is contemplative and idyllic, featuring charming phrases like "Every old hedge has a story to tell" and folksy section titles like "A little bit about horses" and "A digression on sheep, and pigs and hens." Although the book's loose-knit structure can cause it to read more like a series of journal entries than a polished text, Young's assertion that "all animals are individuals" is certainly supported by these entertaining and tender stories. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
An organic farmer identifies empathy, happiness and eccentricity in her cattle. Despite the seeming naivety of her narrative voice, she is well aware of what she's up to What is it like to be a cow? If Rosamond Young is to be believed, it's pretty much like being human. Cows are "besotted" by and "dote on" their newborns, and nurture and counsel them as they grow up. They form "devoted and inseparable" friendships with their peers. They talk to each other, discuss the weather, pass on wisdom, introduce themselves to newcomers, go for walks, kiss, babysit, love to be stroked, play hide-and-seek, have running races, take offence, hold grudges, lose their temper, get stressed, and grieve over the death of a parent or child. They also tease, pressurise, question, retaliate against and "show baffled gratitude" towards their keepers. In short, they are the same as we are, though perhaps morally superior. If someone in a pub told you all this, you'd probably move away sharpish. But Young ought to know what she's talking about. Her parents began farming in the Cotswolds in 1953, when she was 12 days old, and she and her brother Richard have continued the family tradition, with a large herd of pedigree Ayrshires and some sheep. From the start, she was used to stroking cows, speaking to them by name, and enjoying their individuality. And she soon came to see that they were individuals to each other too, tied by birth or other forms of kinship. For example, the "White Boys", two white bulls close in age, would walk around shoulder to shoulder and sleep with their heads resting on each other. Her book was first published by a specialist farming press 14 years ago. After the success of J ames Rebanks's The Shepherd's Life in 2015 as well as recent nature writing that invites us to reappraise the inner lives of animals, its reissue for a general readership looks timely. But media interest in the Young family and Kite's Nest Farm dates back to at least the 1980s. Theirs is a leading example of organic farming, based on the idea that livestock treated with kindness and consideration will have happier lives -- and produce better meat. Despite the seeming naivety of her narrative voice, Young is well aware of what she is up to. The anthropomorphism she takes to extremes is there to convert sceptics and provoke behaviourists. No more carping about whether animals feel the same emotions as humans do. And no more herd mentality: every cow must be seen as unique. She writes about them as though they were characters in a novel: "The angry expression that had taken hold of her face relaxed and she turned and walked out"; "She looked after him of course but was visibly relieved when he went off to play with his friends"; "Stephanie and her daughter Olivia enjoyed a normal close relationship"; "Durham was psychologically balanced but rather small"; "Charlotte and Guy got on like a house on fire". At other times she's zoomorphic, to comic effect: cows eat "like a horse" and calves "like caterpillars", while hens are "busy as bees" and bulls "a different kettle of fish". Her evidence for the qualities she finds in cows (empathy, guile, altruism, happiness, eccentricity) is anecdotal rather than scientific. But some of the stories are certainly compelling. There is the cow that wakes her with its desperate mooing, then leads her to its sick ("blown") calf; the cow that uses its nose to wriggle a rope over a gatepost in order to get to a trailer full of hay; the cow that consistently removes a woollen hat worn by one of the farmhands (but never anyone else's); the cows that use their stares to reproach or cajole; the cows that eat willow to recover from illness; the hens that act as bodyguards to their injured sister and mourn her eventual death. The cooping up of cows reduces the size of their brains, whereas cattle given freedom of movement are freethinkers In this benign view of nature, the lion lies down with the lamb -- or rather the lamb (Audrey) and the pig (Piggy) ignore differences of size and species to become best friends (Piggy being better company than Audrey's "boring" fellow orphan lamb Sibyl). Two bulls almost come to blows and occasional deaths are noted. But there's none of the hardship and agony you find in Rebanks's memoir or Ted Hughes's Moortown poems. The tone is relentlessly upbeat: "All birds are happy clever creatures" etc. There's even a soppy poem addressed to one of the author's favourite cows, Amelia. The narrative would exert less charm but for some calculated omissions. As Alan Bennett notes in his introduction, nothing is said about what goes on between cows and bulls (which may, he suggests, be a respect for their privacy). Nor is there any mention of the slaughterhouse, beyond the fact that the Young family remain "in charge of every stage of production". The book ends with lists of "20 things you ought to know about" cows, pigs, sheep and hens. One thing you know about cattle farmers is that they are not catering for vegetarians. Will the book do anything to appease those who see cattle farming of any kind as "catastrophic"? Probably not, though it claims that two-thirds of farmland in the UK is grassland, mostly "unsuitable for crop production", and points out that a switch to arable farming usually means the removal of hedgerows, which are vital for carbon storage and partly offset methane emissions. What the book does highlight, by contrast to its own shining example, is the immorality of intensive farming. It attacks the numerous cruelties that go on, unseen by supermarket shoppers -- incarceration, tail-docking, sleep deprivation, force-feeding, early weaning, teeth-cutting, debeaking. And it shows that the degree of freedom allowed to animals on Kite's Nest Farm is not only more humane but makes sound economic sense. As Boswell said: "The flesh of animals who have fed excursively [has] a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up." The cooping up of cows also reduces the size of their brains, Young believes, whereas her cattle, given freedom of movement, are freethinkers. Of course, she knows that what goes on inside their heads isn't the same as what goes on in ours: "Why should human criteria have any relevance to other species?" But by writing about them as human, she's calling for greater humanity in the way they are treated. Whatever else, no one who has read her book will look at cows in the same light again. - Blake Morrison.
Kirkus Review
British farmer Young shows how she has continued her family's farming tradition, a moral, observant, and personal way of farming that predates the "organic" trend or even the use of the term."I hope that I am beginning here what began as an oral tradition," writes the author in this celebration of her farm, Kite's Nest, and her cows. Though the table of contents lists a number of chapters (a division Young resisted), there are actually two main parts to this short book. The first is a farming manifesto presenting the compelling argument that farm animals are more like individual people than most of us would ever suspect. They have their own personalities, levels of intelligence (that vary widely in some species), and common sense about what is best for them. They are naturally happy, until humans interfere. As the author notes, interfering with their happiness is not only immoral, it is bad farming: The milk and the meat taste worse, the animals are less healthy, and those who consume them will be as well. "Happy animals grow faster, stay healthier, cause fewer problems and provide more profit in the long run, when all factors, such as the effects on human health and the environment are taken into account," she writes. The longer second part of the book is a fondly annotated genealogy of the animals on her farm. We learn of the names of the animals, their individual temperaments and friendships, the preferences they develop for some humans over others, and their willingness to forgive or not (as perceived by the author). This part could have been much longer, the author insists, even if it had focused solely on "Ameliaan unusually delightful calf, more trusting and understanding than we would have thought possible.I could write for a thousand pages, listing every detail of Amelia's life, and I still would not have presented an even half-accurate picture of her."A pleasant book about the joys of close observation. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
An organic farmer for more than 30 years, Young runs Kite's Nest Farm on the edge of the Cotswolds in southwestern England. Raising beef and dairy cattle along with sheep, pigs, and chickens in an open environment where the animals choose what's best for them, Young discovered that allowing her animals to express their natural behaviors made sound financial sense. Happy animals grow faster. In a series of interconnected stories, the author writes of bovine friendships, such as that of the White Boys, two pure-white calves born days apart who immediately preferred each other's company to that of their mothers. Animals know how to care for themselves. Those who have sustained an injury will seek out willows, a natural source of aspirin. Lucy the pig taught Young the falsity of the old wives' tale that pigs couldn't swim by jumping into a pond and doing a few laps. Young's animal stories are truly charming and quietly convincing of the great value of a more natural form of farming.--Bent, Nancy Copyright 2010 Booklist