Driving a tractor was a rite of passage for every farmboy and girl. Anyone who grew up on a farm has nostalgic—or not so happy!—stories about his or her first tractor: the Farmall that replaced the draft horses, the John Deere “Poppin’ Johnny” that ran forever, and the cursed tractor that would never start. The long hours spent in the metal tractor seat, come rain, snow, or the glaring sun, were formative in a farmer’s life. Here are 25 stories from notable rural authors relating fond or not-so-fond memories of their first tractors, including Michael Perry, Bob Artley, Roger Welsch, Bob Feller, Ben Logan, Gwen Petersen, Ralph W. Sanders, Robert N. Pripps, Patricia Penton Leimbach, Randy Leffingwell, Lee Klancher, Don Macmillan, Scott Garvey, John Dietz, and more.

At Clay Bottom Farm, author Ben Hartman and staff practice kaizen, or continuous improvement, cutting out more waste--of time, labor, space, money, and more--every year and aligning their organic production more tightly with customer demand. Applied alongside other lean principles originally developed by the Japanese auto industry, the end result has been increased profits and less work. In this field-guide companion to his award-winning first book, The Lean Farm, Hartman shows market vegetable growers in even more detail how Clay Bottom Farm implements lean thinking in every area of their work, including using kanbans, or replacement signals, to maximize land use; germination chambers to reduce defect waste; and right-sized machinery to save money and labor and increase efficiency. From finding land and assessing infrastructure needs to selling perfect produce at the farmers market, The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables digs deeper into specific, tested methods for waste-free farming that not only help farmers become more successful but make the work more enjoyable. These methods include: Using Japanese paper pot transplanters Building your own germinating chambers Leaning up your greenhouse Making and applying simple composts Using lean techniques for pest and weed control Creating Heijunka, or load-leveling calendars for efficient planning Farming is not static, and improvement requires constant change. The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables offers strategies for farmers to stay flexible and profitable even in the face of changing weather and markets. Much more than a simple exercise in cost-cutting, lean farming is about growing better, not cheaper, food--the food your customers want.

In Farm, Joyce Kinkead, Evelyn Funda, and Lynne S. McNeill explore the culture of agriculture through a diverse and multicultural collection of fiction, poetry, essays, art, recipes, and folklore. This reader views farming through a variety of lenses, asking students to consider what farms, farming, and farmers mean, and have meant, to culture in the United States. In the text, readers are guided through the Jeffersonian idealism of the yeoman farmer (“cultivators of the earth are the chosen people of God”) to literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Thoreau’s “The Bean-Field,” Cather’s prairie trilogy, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and Carpenter’s Farm City). Contributors provide historical context for the literary texts, such as discussion of sharecropping vs. plantation systems, the rise of agribusiness and chemical farming, and Teddy Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission. Written, visual, and oral texts ask readers to consider the farm in art (Grant Wood), ecology (Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring), children’s and young adult literature (classic children’s books, YA novels, nonfiction, and poetry), advertising (from early boosterism to Chipotle videos), print culture (farmers’ market and victory garden posters from both world wars), folklore (food culture, vintners, and veterinarian practices), popular culture (Farm Aid concerts), and much more. Each reading is supported by activities, exercises, projects, and visual rhetorical elements that further connect students to agriculture and the essential work of farmers.

This exciting sound book is packed with things that work in the fields and on the farm, such as tractors, balers, and much more. With bright colors, appealing photographs, and a fun tractor chugging sound, this sturdy board book is full of farming action!

When Elvis Presley decided he wanted to buy a horse in 1966, he didn't want just any horse. "He wanted a Golden Palomino," Priscilla Presley remembers. "He would get up at 3:00 in the morning, go to certain farms and ranches and say, 'Do you have a Golden Palomino for sale?' People would say, 'That was Elvis Presley!" Elvis's legendary love of horses drove him to find the Golden Palomino who would become his beloved companion Rising Sun, and to fill Graceland's stables and Circle G Ranch with horses for family and friends to ride. In the first-ever book dedicated to Elvis's equestrian side, horse lovers Kimberly Gatto and Victoria Racimo share rare stories, interviews, and photographs that shed light on the beautiful, quiet life the King lived when he was with his horses.

Describes the challenges and rewards faced by modern farms in the Midwest, and looks at the seasonal milestones of rural life