How to Shovel Manure and Other Life Lessons for the Country Woman
How to Shovel Manure and Other Life Lessons for the Country Woman
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Overview
It’s not a job you want to take on without a sense of humor. Oops--it’s not a job at all. It’s an all-encompassing life, being a country woman on the ranch or farm, and with wit and equanimity like Gwen Petersen’s, it can be survived. In fact, with Petersen’s help, it can be drop-dead hilarious. A much-loved cowgirl scribe in rare form, Petersen eases us through the rigors of country living, from raising chickens to shoveling manure to cooking Rocky Mountain oysters. You’d think midwifing a calf was no laughing matter--until Gwen steps in with her expert advice. She has wise counsel for sharing the yard with a gaggle of ill-tempered geese; step-by-step instructions for harvesting pig manure; and sound advice for staying cool through haying season and coping with the chaos of Christmas on the ranch or farm.
For good measure, the book includes poems and recipes that will transport you to a country state of mind--whether you hail from the city’s busiest streets or the ranch’s quietest gravel roads. Equal parts handy how-to advice, rural humor, philosophy, and fond farm nostalgia, How to Shovel Manure and Other Life Lessons for the Country Woman is all good.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781616739829 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Voyageur Press |
| Publication date: | 08/15/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
For Gwen Petersen, the seeds of country living were planted during youthful summertime visits to her grandparents’ Illinois farm and hours helping her mother raise chickens in their city backyard. When Gwen married a rancher, her background as an occupational therapist for the bothered and bewildered helped her some in figuring out how to cope with country life. After thirty-five years of muddling through--and living with an assortment of cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, cats, dogs, horses, and a gaggle of particularly nasty-tempered geese--she’s starting to catch on. Today Gwen lives on a small place in Montana where she raises miniature horses and works on her attitude. Her humorous writings on barnyard foibles include magazine columns, cowboy and -girl poetry, and her book, The Greenhorn’s Guide to the Woolly West.
Read an Excerpt
Over the decades of rural living, Country Women have been helpmeets to their men. With remarkable courage, incredible stamina, and splendid insouciance to the rawer facts of nature, the Country Woman has shaped the nest surrounding that hardworkin', cow-wrasslin', bull-throwin' son-of-a-farmer. Take away the Country Woman and it's like throwing away the keys to the pickup: Nothing gets going.
This book is a handy guide and aid to those choosing to spend their lives as Country Women. It contains really helpful, practical, useful tips and hints to keep the Country Woman from going berserk. (Reserve going berserk for special occasions.) Because farm and ranch life is necessarily divided and marked by the seasons of the year, the manual will attempt to follow a similar pattern. Our hope is to provide an understanding reference volume for the dauntless Country Woman, couched in language developed in secret women's conclaves* (see footnote), not necessarily comprehensible to men.
Any Country Woman could write a book about country life. It has all the elements of good fiction: excitement (you hope that young colt won't dump you), tension (if you do get dumped, you hope nothing on your personal self breaks), danger (is that a rattlesnake curled under the tractor?), heroes and heroines (that would be your Dearly Beloved, yourself, your family, and your favorite sheepdog), and villains (that would be government regulations, mean roosters, wolves, coyotes, other uninvited varmints, and sometimes the plumbing).
But country life isn't fiction. It's as real as the sun rising each morning, as genuine as snow on mountaintops, as basic as breathing. Country life is the story ofland.
Nurturing the earth is the heart of country life. In a rural culture, ranchers and farmers are the first stewards of land that produces the food and fiber that feed and clothe the nation. As you watch and work with the magic of changing seasons, your creed as a Country Woman is simple and true: Take care of the land and the land will take care of you.
Table of Contents
Parts and InnardsPreface
Part One: Springtime on the Ranch and Farm
Section One: Calving the Heifers
Section Two: Chickens
Section Three: Pigs and Pigging
Section Four: Spring Farming and Crop Planting
Section Five: Starting the Irrigation Water
Section Six: Hired Hands
Section Seven: Planting the Garden
Section Eight: Spreading and Harrowing
Section Nine: Instant Hired Hand
Section Ten: Branding
Part Two: Good Old Summertime
Section Eleven: Summer Irrigation
Section Twelve: Haying
Section Thirteen: How to Keep Cool While Haying
Section Fourteen: Moving the Cows to Summer Pasture
Section Fifteen: Veterinary Care
Section Sixteen: Garden Maintenance
Section Seventeen: Varmint Control
Section Eighteen: Summer Company
Section Nineteen: Canning, Freezing, and "Putting Up" All that Garden Produce
Section Twenty: Summer Fun
Part Three: Fall-When the Year Starts Its Downhill Slide
Section Twenty-One: Roundup Time and Marketing the Calves
Section Twenty-Two: Getting in the Wood for Winter
Section Twenty-Three: Cleaning the Pig Sheds (Also Done in Spring)
Section Twenty-Four: The Art of Opening Gates
Section Twenty-Five: Hunting Season
Part Four: Winter and the Layered Look
Section Twenty-Six: Feeding the Critters
Section Twenty-Seven: Proper Winter Clothing
Section Twenty-Eight: Getting Ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas Food Consumption
Section Twenty-Nine: Surviving the Annual Christmas Program at the Schoolhouse
Section Thirty: Watching TV in Winter (If You Have TV)
Section Thirty-One: Waiting for Spring
Section Thirty-Two: Sheep andLambing
Part Five: Woman Work and Woman Activity
Section Thirty-Three: Sleep
Section Thirty-Four: Coffee, Cookies, and Daily Meals
Section Thirty-Five: Washing the Separator
Section Thirty-Six: Visitors
Section Thirty-Seven: Coping with the Annual 4
Section Thirty-Eight: Yard-Sale-ing-An Addiction or a Pleasant Hobby?
Section Thirty-Nine: Sidekick Savvy
Section Forty: Ordering a Custom-Built Country Man
Section Forty-One: Country Mouse, City Mouse
Section Forty-Two: Basic Farm and Ranch Attitudes (A Ranch Is a Ranch Is a Ranch Is a Farm Is a Farm Is a Farm . . .)
What People are Saying About This
Small Farm Today, Sept./Dec. 2007
“These personal stories are told in a hilarious and sometimes touching way … This book ties country women together with a sisterhood of stories that tell of their courage, stamina, and character revealed in the trials, tribulations, successes and satisfaction of being a country woman.”
The Prairie Star
“This rollicking work features down-to-earth advice, poetry, down-home recipes and original limericks, all bubbling with Gwen’s wry sense of humor.”
Great Falls Tribune, July 27, 2007
“While there are tidbits of actual usable information in ‘How to Shovel Manure,’ the book is primarily entertaining.”
, Aug. 15, 2007
Bookworm Sez, October 2007
“How to Shovel Manure is an enjoyable little book, perfect for leaving in the truck or tractor to read while waiting, and packed with loads of information sprinkled with wry humor. Throughout the book are cute little limericks and poems, old-time ads for farm products, and recipes that every country woman will want to try. If you’re a Country Woman who’s proud of the differences between you and your city friends, then you have to have this book. For you How to Shovel Manure is a shovel full of fun.”
Iowa Farmer Today, Nov. 3, 2007
“Being a country woman is not just a job, it is an encompassing way of life. But with wit and equanimity alike in Gwen Petersons’ ‘How to Shovel Manure and Other Life Lessons for the Country Woman,’ it can be survived.”