Some Christmas Farming & Rural Life Related Books …Hopefully Something For Everyone….

The Lean Dairy Farm: Eliminate Waste, Save Time, Cut Costs – Creating a More Productive, Profitable and Higher Quality Farm  by Jana Hocken (Author), Mat Hocken (Author)

Make your farm better, smarter, and more productive

The Lean method is revolutionising farming globally with its proven approach for reducing waste, improving productivity and sustaining profits.In The Lean Dairy Farm, dairy farmer and Lean consultant Jana Hocken explains why this approach is essential to every dairy farm and how to apply these tools, practices and principles to your dairy operation.

Till the Cows Come Home: Memories of an Irish farming childhood by Lorna Sixsmith

One farm. Two worlds. Three generations.

Fuelled by dreams of a rural idyll, Lorna Sixsmith and her husband swap the 9 to 5 for a return to her family’s ancestral farm at Garrendenny.

They love the fields and lanes of their corner of Ireland where their black and white herd flourishes, the land where the patterns of their lives echo those of generations of Sixsmiths before them.

But a rural existence isn’t a heaven on earth. Bad weather, runaway bulls, temperamental farm machinery and cows that refuse to be milked can test anyone’s patience. But not for too long – the fields, the animals and the laughter always win out.

Warm, witty and wise, Lorna Sixsmith effortlessly mixes family memories, social history and her own hard-won insights into life on the land.

Farming and the Law by Karen Walsh

Farming and the Law is the first publication in Ireland, in over a decade, dealing specifically with legal issues that arise in farming. It offers a comprehensive overview of the legal issues of which farmers should be aware, in an increasingly complex and regulated environment.

The Cow Book: A Story of Life on an Irish Family Farm by John Connell 

Farming has been in John Connell’s family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father’s footsteps. Until, one winter, he finds himself back on the farm and begins to learn the ways of the farmer and the way of the cows.

The Farmer’s Son: Calving Season on a Family Farm  by John Connell 

For fans of The Shepherd’s Life, a poignant memoir–and #1 Irish bestseller–about a wayward son’s return home to his family’s farm, and how he found a new beginning in an age-old world

Irish Farming Life: History and Heritage by Jonathon Bell (Author) & Mervyn Watson (Author)

This lavishly illustrated book examines Irish rural society and its basic social unit – the family farm – as well as important issues such as neighborly ties and the use of hired labour.

Organic Farming: How to Raise, Certify, and Market Organic Crops and Livestock by Peter Fossel

A Ploughing People: The Farming Life Celebrated – Stories, Traditions, The Championships by Valerie Cox

Journey into the heartland of rural Ireland, in words and images, from the 1930s to today. Meet the characters behind the Ploughing Championships, past and present. Witness the traditions and stories from a changing way of life, where community spirit remains central, and the plough keeps turning the sod, year on year . . .

When I Had a Little Sister: The Story of a Farming Family Who Never Spoke by Catherine Simpson 

When I had a Little Sister by Catherine Simpson is a searingly honest and heartbreaking account of growing up in a farming family, and of Catherine’s search for understanding into what led her younger sister to kill herself at 46. It’s a story of sisters and sacrifice, grief and reclamation, and of the need to speak the unspeakable.

Jack’s World: Farming on the Sheep’s Head Peninsula, 1920-2003 by Sean Sheehan

This is the story of the life and times of a West Cork farmer, growing up and struggling to survive in the 1920s and 1930s, managing his farm through the 1950s and adjusting to new forces in the 1970s, but marginalised by the times we now live in.