Country Life at Peeper Pond Farm

Country Life at Peeper Pond Farm

My life has taken me many places within this country that most people have never seen or experienced. That observation is also the point of my book. I want to tell you stories of true farm living—both funny and sad. I want to explain the core values that farmers live by and that govern how they view life. But, most of all, I want to teach you how to understand farmers and farming issues from their perspective. After all, these are the people who raised me. Even though I left farming for 37 years to live life in the modern, outside world, I was drawn back to it in my retirement. Farmers are my people, and I have come to understand them well. I want to teach you how they are different from the average urban-dweller of today. I also want you to understand how you need to broaden your perspective to truly respect and embrace them. True enlightenment is gained by broadening your understanding, not by casually ignoring or selectively dismissing what you don’t wish to consider. As for the farmers I represent, I want my book to inspire and empower you. I want you to feel gratified that someone truly understands and puts into words things you wish you could have said many times before. I want to make you feel proud of being a farmer and of the sacrifices you have made for others—many of whom simply fail to appreciate them. I want you to know that someone will support you and how you think. It’s easy for farmers to feel overlooked and marginalized today, and I want to assure you that some people can see it differently. I want you to be secure in the knowledge that you are not wrong simply because your basic values and perspective on life are very different from those living in the modern outside world. I hope my book is all these things to all my readers. But, in the final analysis, it’s the true story of a farmer and a farm life lived as fully and traditionally as possible—within the economic constraints imposed by modern society. I hope I can persuade all of you to cherish our traditional rural folkways and lifestyles as much as I do. That was our mission for Peeper Pond Farm, and it remains my underlying goal in life. I hope in writing about it, I can help you see and understand life for what it really is and for what it can be.