Barnheart uncovered

I have finished Jenna Woginrich's memoir, Barnheart, and let me tell you, that girl has more energy than I EVER had - even when I was as young as she was.  I am NOT the get up early, dig-in-the-garden, feed-the-chickens kind.  I am the get up early, pick-up-a-book and get-lost-in-it sort.

That said, I found this book fun to read and very educational.  I never realized that sheepherding was such a widespread occupation.  Even as an avocation, I expected it to be practiced by just a handful of earthy people.  Nor, did I know that there was such a network of livestock swaps.  Now, maybe here in Jenna's native PA, these things don't exist.  Up in Pike County they might or over Bradford way along the NY/PA border in the west.

Jenna's good fortune lasts half way through the book.  When she decides she wants something, she finds a way to get it.  And it feels like things fall into her lap!  Never fear. This book is more about the struggles of the homesteading life than a crowing self-congratulation.  Raising more than half her own food, caring for chickens, geese, breeding rabbits, caring for sheep AND working a full time job does not sound like a picnic to me.  Oops, I forgot the dogs and the turkey and the ordeal of schlepping things around in a Subaru station wagon.  And then trouble looms and Jenna is faced with hard decisions, sigh!

If you like gardening; if you even once in awhile wish you had a flock of chickens - (that is more common an aspiration these days than you might think!); if you wish you knew where your food came from; AND if, like me, you prefer your adventures between the covers of a book, Barnheart is a rollicking read.  Now, I have to find a copy of her first memoir, Made from Scratch.  Hope it's as good as Barnheart.