Chainsaws and Cherry Burls

With humor and a keen sense of appreciation for the beauty of

a fading ower petal and the swollen belly of a well-fed leech,

Jennifer Neves's essays pull readers from one boundary of her

42-acre farm to the next. From the trickle of winter melt in a

muddy streambed to the catch and release of a family of

skunks, Neves's essays never fail to make the case for rural life.

The roots of her family cannot be detangled from those of the

cherry tree or the trillium ower, and Neves playfully investigates

why this might be so. Her words invite the reader to

share in self-discovery, in reverence for the land, and in the

sometimes quiet, but most often astonishingly loud business

of raising a handful of feral children.