Cold Antler FarmA Memoir of Growing Food and Celebrating Life on a Scrappy Six-Acre Homestead

Jenna Woginrich is well loved for her essays on all that accompanies the life of a true homesteader: the mud and mess, the beautiful and tragic, the grime and passion. In Cold Antler Farm, she draws our attention to the timekeeper of such a lifestyle: the ancient agricultural year, filled with celebrations and seasonal touchstones that mark turning points in the cycles of life.

Amidst these new-old holidays, we learn the stories of her beloved animals and crops. May apple blossoms become sweet fruit for rambunctious sheep in June. Come September, the apple harvest draws together neighbors for cider making under the waning summer sun. These living beings fuel one another—and the community—day to day, season by season.

If we examine what living seasonally truly means, the agrarian calendar becomes a source of wisdom. How do we set down roots and break new ground in spring? How can we best nourish body and soul in the heat of deep summer? And what can we learn by simply paying more attention to the weather? Cold Antler Farm encourages us to eat and live well with respect for the natural rhythms of the year. In turn we learn what it means to be truly connected.

 “Cold Antler Farm will leave you torn: you’ll be just as eager to turn the page and learn what comes next as you’ll want to close the book and walk away, so as to draw out the conclusion. It’s that good.”

—Ashley English, author of the Homemade Living book series and A Year of Pies

“Few writers can put into words the epiphanies that break upon a mind and spirit communing with a piece of earth. . . . Jenna is a master.”

—Joel Salatin, American farmer, lecturer, and author of Folks, This Ain’t Normal
 
“Full of humility, inspiration, and the richness of experience inherent to living in harmony with natural forces far beyond our control.”

—Ben Hewitt, author of The Town That Food Saved

“A powerful memoir of a brave and determined young woman’s love affair with a gritty six-acre farm that is every inch her own, and of her struggles to keep it going.”

—Jon Katz, author of The Second-Chance Dog: A Love Story