Description
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This is a memoir of our lives and sometimes risky decisions. We relate our early years, meeting and raising kids, and building the farm, the organic movement and a healthy community. We didn’t always go along with what most Americans were doing, especially in the areas of diet and health care, employment, debt and consumerism, energy use, and culture. In this book we explain what we did, why we did it, and how it turned out. We hope it is both entertaining and helpful to people wanting to fashion a purposeful life.
– Jack and Julie
“This book offers a window into living a life of meaning, rooted in integrity, values, critical thinking, and persistent effort. . . . [ Jack and Julie] have also shown me and so many others how to love across difference, how to tell the truth, and what it is to live well.”
—Leah Penniman, co-founder, Soul Fire Farm and author of Farming While Black
In this honest and entertaining memoir, two activists recount the nearly half century they’ve spent questioning authority, raising a family, starting an organic farm, building a community, leading a farming organization, and experiencing the struggles and joys of living a purposeful life.
Many Hands Make a Farm traces the inspiring journey of organic farming pioneers Julie Rawson and Jack Kittredge. The couple met in 1976, working as community organizers in Boston. After falling in love and starting a family, they decided to use Jack’s occasional side-job earnings as a board game designer as a springboard to get out of the city and move back to the land where they could grow healthy food for their children. What began as a family homestead soon blossomed into the diversified Many Hands Organic Farm.
In a time when society at large was “going along to get along,” Julie and Jack stood out as leaders and iconoclasts. They chose to buck the mainstream by minimizing energy use, raising their food organically, not relying on credit, favoring natural health care, and actively participating in the arts, believing that taking risks and making bold decisions can unlock one’s full potential.
Many Hands Make a Farm will resonate with fans of original thinkers from Henry David Thoreau and Wendell Berry to Lynn Margulis and Adelle Davis. The book shows the value of finding roots in a community, respecting the Earth, and combining social justice work with the joys and challenges of family. These themes shine through on every page, making this memoir a must-read for anyone seeking inspiration and guidance on finding meaning in this life.
Order your book directly from us by sending a check of $29, which includes shipping.
Make check payable to MHSC, 411 Sheldon Rd., Barre MA 01005. We will mail a signed copy of the book to you. $12.50 of your order goes Many Hands Sustainability Center.