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Fear Not to Sow Because of the Birds: Essays on Country Living and Natural Farming from Walnut Acres
Fear Not to Sow Because of the Birds Essays on Country Living and Natural Farming from Walnut Acres Author:Paul Keene, Dorothy Z. Seymour, Dorothy Jane Mills In 1946 Paul Keene and his wife, Betty, bought a 100-plus-acre farm in the hills of central Pennsylvania. It was there, on Walnut Acres, that Keene sought a new existence in cooperation with nature. Inspired by his experiences in India and his conversations with Mahatma Gandhi, Keene began to forge a simple life based on natural prin... more »ciples.
For more than four decades, Walnut Acres has been not only a home and a way of life but one of the first and most successful organic farms in the country. By growing untainted foods in healthy soil, the Keenes have made the soil their companion -- living close to it, gently tying themselves to it, and putting back into it more than they have taken out.
The secrets of the soil motivated Keene to write, for "one cannot keep these to oneself." And write he has. For more than thirty years, Keene's essays have appeared in the mail-order catalogue that sells his natural food products. Fear Not to Sow Because of the Birds is a compilation of these essays. In them, Keene shares years of reflections and timeless insights on the practical and philosophical elements of life in small towns and on the farm. He records his observations on nature and the seasons and people's irrefutable bonds to them. Throughout, he weaves memories of a childhood surrounded by hard work and the quiet certitudes of rural life.
The title of this book, taken from an inscription on a country gravestone, conveys Keene's own personal ideology: What we possess within ourselves -- the hopes, the truths, the convictions -- is sufficient to allay our fears and to move us closer to a full harvest.« less