Tuesday, March 17, 2015

If You Leave This Farm: The Dream is Destroyed by Amanda Farmer Excerpt & Giveaway


Book Genre: Memoir, Autobiographic
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Release Date: July 2014
Buy Link(s): http://www.farmgirlwriter.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html

http://www.amazon.com/You-Leave-this-Farm-Destroyed/dp/1480809284/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423873269&sr=1-1&keywords=if+you+leave+this+farm

Book Description: My book chronicles the story of our move to Minnesota as a family when we are teenagers to farm together. The first year’s catastrophic crop failure sets off a determination by our father to totally control our circumstances and leads to 12 years of struggle by my younger brother and I to leave the farm. Interweaved into the story is our life as Mennonites and the influence that has upon our lives.



Excerpt One (300-500 or so Words):

I grab a book to read while supper is being put on the table. Reading is my escape to adventures I probably will never see, but there is nothing to stop me from dreaming. I work in a few paragraphs before it is time to gather at the table. Daddy begins by reading a passage aloud from the Bible. Then he prays before we dig into a hearty meal of farmer’s fare: potatoes, meat, a vegetable, and always a dessert.
            “Children,” Daddy says tonight, “Next Monday evening, we are going to go to Nirvana to see some slides of farms that are for sale in the Midwest. They are being shown by a real estate agent from there. I need you to get the milking started right away when you get home from school.”

            Daddy has been talking for some time now about buying land “out West” and moving out of the crowded Pennsylvania area. Currently, Daddy is renting land in small blocks of five to ten acres, as far away as twenty miles from the home farm. He and Paul are farming around five hundred acres altogether. We all spend a lot of time on the road, traveling back and forth to the various fields and hauling the baled hay home during the long summer days. Daddy and Paul think it would be so much easier to just have a piece of land all in one block to farm. I am not so sure about this idea, but Daddy promises that if we do this, we won’t milk as many cows. We will only have maybe fifty cows. That sounds like a wonderful idea to me and I am open to an adventure. By now it is nine thirty, and I fall into bed, exhausted with dreams of faraway places and fewer cows to milk.


Author Bio: The author, Amanda, grew up on the farm and worked together there with her family until the age of 29. She now lives with her husband on a hobby farm in southeastern Minnesota. They have one grown daughter. Amanda holds a Master’s Degree in Nurse Anesthesia and currently works in that profession.

Author Links - The link for any or all of the following...
Blog: https://farmgirlwriter.wordpress.com/
Twitter:   https://twitter.com/farmgirlwriter5
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22833980-if-you-leave-this-farm?ac=1 
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/You-Leave-this-Farm-Destroyed/dp/1480809284/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423873269&sr=1-1&keywords=if+you+leave+this+farm


Tags/Labels: If You Leave This Farm, Amanda Farmer, memoir, autobiographical novels, autobiography, non-fiction, mennonites, farming, virtual book tour café




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