Book Review: The Blueberry Years

Remember how I talked about how The Dirty Life made me think about my past? For some reason, The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family made me think about a future of dreams and possibilities; which is sort of ironic, since it’s a memoir.

Maybe it’s because it is written in such beautiful, reflective prose; maybe it’s because in addition to telling the story of building and tending a blueberry farm, author Jim Minick includes commentary on issues facing today’s farmers; or maybe because the recipes at the back sound delicious; whatever the reason, this book made me think of my own future.

Here’s the description from the publisher:

The Blueberry Years is a mouth-watering and delightful memoir based on Jim Minick’s trials and tribulations as an organic blueberry farmer. This story of one couple and one farm shows how our country’s appetite for cheap food affects how that food is grown, who does or does not grow it, and what happens to the land. But this memoir also calls attention to the fragile nature of our global food system and our nation’s ambivalence about what we eat and where it comes from.

Readers of Michael Polland and Barbara Kingsolver will savor the tale of Jim’s farm and the exploration of larger issues facing agriculture in the United States—like the rise of organic farming, the plight of small farmers, and the loneliness common in rural America. Ultimately, The Blueberry Years tells the story of a place shaped by a young couple’s dream, and how that dream ripened into one of the mid-Atlantic’s first certified-organic, pick-your-own blueberry farms.

As Minick described buying blueberry plants, and all the hard work that went into accounting and digging and planting, all the learning they did, I thought of the journey that DH and I are on to open our own microbrewery. We aren’t to the point of buying yet, but he is working on a business plan and working out the figures; we are reading books and exploring possibilities. It made me think of all the hard work ahead of us; the uncertainty of opening a new business. Yet in spite of all the hard work, it seems more possible than ever after reading this book.

I highly recommend it!

Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy of this book; all opinions are my own.