Book Review - One Small Farm - Photographs of a Wisconsin Way of Life

Book Review

One Small Farm
Photographs of a Wisconsin Way of Life

Author - Craig Schreiner

In One Small Farm, Craig Schreiner captures one family as they maintain the rhythms and routines of small farm life near Pine Bluff, Wisconsin.

"People's lives are written on the fields of old farms." 

"It is a routine that has gone on here for decades. Most of the things that are important to my friends in the city and on Facebook, things that are worried over, and debated, written about, satirized and analyzed, are not on the Lambertys' radar. Here there is harmony and sweetness and things that need doing over and over every day. In the summer of 2012, I asked Gordy if he had seen any of the Republican National Convention on the television that week. No, he replied - he had given up on following politics because it had become too bitter. It occurred to me that if our politicians have lost the attention of thoughtful, earnest people like this, we are in big trouble."

Craig Schreiner

I enjoyed this book. I grew up on a small farm and my parents are still farming today. It is a hard life, but full of so many rewards. 

Looking at the photos brought back many memories of growing up and helping my parents.

My favorite photos in the book are of the farmers hands.

"It's often said the eyes are the windows to the soul, but I think the hands, especially the hands of working people like Gordy Lamberty, have just as much to tell"

 Craig Schreiner

 

Faith in God. Personal responsibility. Making do. Pulling together. Avoiding debt. Relying on one's own manual labor. The value of an educated guess. Nurturing the land and the animals. Do all of these add up to success? For the Lambertys, they did.

                                                                                                                                          Craig Schreiner