WENDELL WEDNESDAY.
Wendell was not happy about this photography session interfering with his bone-eating time.
IDEA FARMING.
Yesterday on the blog we announced that I wrote a book, and I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has purchased it so far or who plans to at the fair. At a time when all our farm has to sell is our ideas––be it the t-shirts or the book––we're greatly appreciative of the support. You're helping to plant our farm, so thank you.Hannah and I will be moving onto the farm in a week. For keeps. I've been really excited about this fact, but knew it meant I would not have much access to electricity––or free time––over the next six months or so. Not enough to finish editing an entire book. So I decided to divide and conquer, starting with the first third––Book One––which is available now through print copy (and hopefully digital soon). Book Two will be available in the fall, completed when I can steal some time and sleep from myself, and Book Three will be ready the following winter. The books are practically complete now, they just need extensive editing which, for Book One, was graciously provided by Erin Breeding of The Breedings. It would not be the same book without her guidance (thank you, Erin!).I would also like to add how inspired I've been lately by the self-publishing world which, just five or so years ago, would have probably been a pretty hilarious thing to say. But now the quality is great, and the options limitless. For writers like me who write books about how natural wine introduced them to vegetable farming, which suddenly turns into a love story, it just makes sense. Especially when the writer then decides they want to release it in three parts. Self-publishing is just more flexible in that way.Thank you again for you support––you all are amazing. If you have any questions about the book, please let me know!- Jesse.
BRINGING WINE HOME: BOOK ONE.
Over the course of the last year and half––in the mornings before the sun would come up, and in the evenings when the gardens were dark––I sat down and hammered out my story. I wrote when it was raining, when it was dark, through good times, and a surprisingly healthy dose of bad. I wrote every chance I found, and when I looked up, I had a book. This book. A book I'm proud (and thrilled, and terrified) to finally say––with the help of my friends, family and lovely, supportive wife––is officially done.Bringing Wine Home is a memoir about how––through natural wine, food and farming––I came to meet my wife, and the adventure that followed. For reasons I'll be explaining on the blog tomorrow, the entire book will be released in three parts over the next year––a trilogy. Book One, all 80 or so pages of it, is the first release and mostly my book. It's a story about how a few unique winemakers inspired me as a young man––struggling with alcohol addiction in myself and my family––to want to make wine, and want to do so in Kentucky. And although it's technically a book about wine, and a book because of it, it is hardly a technical wine book. I took great pains to make sure most anyone would enjoy its narrative, wine lover or not.For those of you who know and follow our story, I only hope this project will enrich it. Each book will be filled with stories we haven't yet told on the blog––or haven't told as in depth––and pieces of our story we might never have had the opportunity to tell, had it not been for Bringing Wine Home. Books Two and Three will be out within the year––which again, I'll explain all of that tomorrow––but for now, I hope you will enjoy Book One, the story of how anyone in their right mind could one day find themselves farming.Here is the link to purchase Book One. The book will also soon be available on Amazon, and we will be bringing lots of copies with us to the Kentucky Green Living Fair as well!- Jesse.UPDATE! Now available on Amazon!
A NEIGHBORHOOD OF FARMS.
We hung out with our friend Eric this morning, and we find ourselves once again feeling inspired and challenged as farmers. Eric is the farm manager at Bell's Bend Neighborhood Farm - a group of farmers living and working together in the Bells Bend/Scottsboro community of Nashville. The goal of the farm is to be an example of how sustainable agriculture can improve the land and the community, providing jobs and food as well as preserving the valuable farmland. We love the idea of community - about joining forces to be able to achieve so much more, about specializing in one thing and relying on your neighbors for what you aren't producing yourselves. As Eric said today, homesteading and farming didn't used to be such a "difficult" way of life. Neighbors helped each other and depended on each other, and everyone was a farmer. Lovely, right?We are excited to be joining our own little community of farmers soon. And we are also excited after seeing Bells Bend's herd of milking Devon's, their amazing intern house, and the field full of telephone poles where they grow HOPS for Yazoo! We left with our heads full of new ideas and a lot of mud on our boots. A good day indeed.- Hannah.
