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Graft: Motherhood, Family and a Year on the Land
In my mind I walk over the land. I run my hands through the grass as if it were the hair on my head. I dig my fingers into the dirt as if the soil were the crust of my skin.
In Graft, Maggie MacKellar describes a year on a Merino wool farm on the east coast of Tasmania, and all of life – and death – that surrounds her through the cycle of lambing seasons. She gives us the land she knows and loves, the lambs she cares for, the ewes she tries to save, the birds around her, and the dogs and horses she adores.
This book is a stunning thanksgiving for a place and a moment in motherhood; and a timely reminder of the inescapable elemental laws of nature.
Susan Duncan on When It Rains: 'An unforgettable story of love and courage that inspires even as it breaks your heart.'
In Graft, Maggie MacKellar describes a year on a Merino wool farm on the east coast of Tasmania, and all of life – and death – that surrounds her through the cycle of lambing seasons. She gives us the land she knows and loves, the lambs she cares for, the ewes she tries to save, the birds around her, and the dogs and horses she adores.
This book is a stunning thanksgiving for a place and a moment in motherhood; and a timely reminder of the inescapable elemental laws of nature.
Susan Duncan on When It Rains: 'An unforgettable story of love and courage that inspires even as it breaks your heart.'
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 25, 2023
28 people are currently reading
555 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
September 26, 2023
I loved the gentle, meditative quality of MacKellar's writing in this memoir that describes a year on a Merino wool farm on the east coast of Tasmania. Her observations on landscape, farming, motherhood, grief, weather, and animals were engrossing. As she weaves her past experiences through descriptions of the lambing seasons, I was reminded of Katherine May's
Wintering
- both books are soothing in such an unexpected way.
I'm not sure who to recommend this book to, and I fear it will slip under the radar but if you need a reading balm, let this be it.
4/5
I'm not sure who to recommend this book to, and I fear it will slip under the radar but if you need a reading balm, let this be it.
4/5
January 21, 2024
Brilliant read, I listened audio for the majority and I found Maggie’s narration so authentic and a true summation of life on the land, mothering and the pull that is lambing season. Resonated with many lambing stories.
February 17, 2024
A quietly told story of a year on Maggie Mackellar’s sheep farm in Tasmania. The country is in severe drought so life and death, mostly death, is ever present. I thought it was a really beautifully told memoir, quite poetic, with descriptions of birds and thoughts on motherhood. That might sound tediously boring to some but not to me. I listened to the audiobook and I enjoyed Maggie’s gentle voice while walking around in the wet humidity of February in Sydney. Particularly poignant were the thoughts on redefining yourself with children grown up and flying the nest, when being a mother has been so central and consuming for the last twenty years. This resonated strongly with me, add in some shearing and lambing and I’m sold. An excellent book.
June 12, 2023
A lyrical read about motherhood, life, loss and self discovery, through the seasons of a drought-stricken farm in Tasmania. I loved this book from the very first page. It’s a beautiful gift of presence.
March 23, 2024
"We live between the domestic and the wild, linked by nature and, it seems, either protecting it, trading with it, or using it for our own means. It’s a constant seesaw of compromise. This life for that. This lamb raised for wool, that one for meat. This eagle trapped by us, in the hope it will survive. That ewe attacked by an eagle, unable to be saved. I think of sheep tracks across an open paddock; they appear as an invitation, a random path, but they never are. And I think of my feet making new tracks, crisscrossing this place. Perhaps my movements are likewise more intentional than I can see, and if I keep myself open, keep watching, I’ll make my peace with the choices I’ve made."
Lots of people told me I would love this, and having read it, I can see why. It is a beautiful piece of nature writing. The description of birds alone makes the spirit soar with them. Mackeller structures the book around the seasonal rhythm of life of the farm and ties the natural cycle into a cycle of motherhood. Death is also ever present in the narrative. Mackeller has a bracing yet empathetic voice when describing the constant struggle to keep sheep alive and to keep the ewes on task as mothers. Mackeller captures both the relentlessness and the sheer joy of life.
Mackeller acknowledges that for those of us living on stolen land, a sense of place must, by necessity, be complicated. On the whole, however, she does not deal with the complexities of farming on a landscape taken through war. This may have dispelled my discomfort or at least acknowledged it. Mackeller describes her childhood terrain as "not mine to love," and yet, mine and love are not the same things. This book is beautifully saturated with weary love, one of its greatest strengths.
Lots of people told me I would love this, and having read it, I can see why. It is a beautiful piece of nature writing. The description of birds alone makes the spirit soar with them. Mackeller structures the book around the seasonal rhythm of life of the farm and ties the natural cycle into a cycle of motherhood. Death is also ever present in the narrative. Mackeller has a bracing yet empathetic voice when describing the constant struggle to keep sheep alive and to keep the ewes on task as mothers. Mackeller captures both the relentlessness and the sheer joy of life.
Mackeller acknowledges that for those of us living on stolen land, a sense of place must, by necessity, be complicated. On the whole, however, she does not deal with the complexities of farming on a landscape taken through war. This may have dispelled my discomfort or at least acknowledged it. Mackeller describes her childhood terrain as "not mine to love," and yet, mine and love are not the same things. This book is beautifully saturated with weary love, one of its greatest strengths.
September 23, 2023
Beautifully written. Moved to tears more than once. ❤️
December 22, 2023
This book is easily my favourite read of 2023 - there, I said it - and it has been my first recommendation to anyone asking me for a book recommendation in recent weeks. My Mum and sister have now read it, and gave equally glowing reviews. I adore this book for its divine structure (!!) and all it has to say about nature, motherhood and life. Thank you, Maggie.
August 7, 2023
4.5 stars.
April 24, 2024
Reading memoir can be an unsettling, voyeuristic, oddly intimate experience, given the window offered into a writer’s interior and exterior worlds. Graft is a big wondrous story set on the rural east coast of my Tasmanian home. A raw, real story of family, loss, the grind of physical labour; a parched world of sheep and lambing, ravens and eagles, horses and dogs, all of which depend for their survival on the aching need for rain. Graft is a most deserving title amongst the Stella Prize finalists. Congratulations and please keep writing. @maggiemackellar_ 📙👏
March 5, 2025
Sad and beautiful with gorgeous drawings of birds sprinkled throughout the book. I read 'Sandwich' by Catherine Newman at the same time as this book. Both stories have middle aged women with children who have just left or are about to leave home. They couldn't be more different! One set in Tasmania during a year of drought and the other set in Cape Cod during a one week annual family holiday.
November 19, 2023
Some of this book made me clutch it to my chest with emotion and gratitude. I appreciated the author sharing honestly, her grief and her experiences. I struggled to reconcile how moved I was with the silence regarding her own privilege and the incongruent inspection of some of her beliefs.
February 9, 2025
Depressingly beautiful and poetic in its portrayal of motherhood, life on the land, and nature.
June 7, 2024
Poetic, evocative and moving. I loved learning about sheep farming although it is often seemingly harsh and cruel. Juxtaposed through Maggie's love for the land and nature. I partcularly recommed this as an audiobook
January 11, 2024
Beautifully written and illustrated memoir of the author's year on a merino sheep farm during drought in Tasmania. Ranges over her childhood, becoming a mother, being a farmer, nature and how they all contribute to her spiritual experience of living.
March 4, 2024
A quiet, graceful, and beautifully written memoir with a wildly beating heart of emotion. I loved it. I admit to being in awe of MacKellar, and her way with words, and her life skills - from jumping, naked, into the freezing Tasmanian sea, to hauling lambs out of recalcitrant ewes. I read this slowly over a month because (a) I didn't want it to end and (b) there is a great deal to absorb and think about. Graft has been longlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize and is a worthy winner. Also, I love the black and white cover, working as it does on many levels.
March 18, 2024
I guess theres a certain level of narcissism that comes with writing a memoir inherently. This usually does not bother me. I love memoirs! The narcissism is this book is so deep in the prescriptive approach it takes to the natural world as well as human behavior and communication. The dehumanization of people with disabilities is hard to read and the author mysticizes communication disorders to serve the text; a single consult with a speech pathologist should have been the bare minimum and clearly never happened. Antisocial and anti intellectual. Such a lack of introspection and self awareness. The author is furious that people have stacked some rocks up on a trail she likes to walk on and smugly destroys it; she has a farm of hundreds of hooves mammals on an island with no native hooved animals. She invokes Indigenous writers words to serve her interests in the texts in terms of manipulations of the land but never reflects on how her life does that very thing? Also, multiple animals are run over with utes in this book and are chalked up to “life is fickle” like this is a natural and inevitable event. A continuous cycle of events in the book where animals are suffering and the author presents herself as the victim for having to listen to the animals dying and wishing they would just (barely paraphrased) “hurry up and die.” There are glimpses of good writing when the topic veers to other people but I truly can’t remember hating a book more.
March 15, 2024
This book is a beautifully written account of one year on a Tasmanian sheep farm in a time of drought but it is so much more than that. Maggie MacKellar is so reflective in her writing and she seems to interrogate everything her life entails - the ethics of farming, her relationship to nature, motherhood, identity, family relationships. It is a genuinely beautiful read.
I found the sections where she talks about growing up with her profoundly disabled older brother quite confronting - in the context of this book it makes sense that she centres herself in that aspect of the narrative but I am still deciding how I feel about it over all - whether or not it is right for him not to be centred in the story of his own life - whether or not this should have been included at all, given that it is not the central focus of the book and, therefore, cannot hope to show all his complexity as a human. I find it hard to read about the negative impact of growing up with a profoundly disabled sibling because so often the tendency for an outsider seems to be to commiserate with the non-disabled sibling about how hard their life must have been and, conversely, not to recognise how hard the disabled sibling’s life has been and will continue to be until they die. I think these narratives can dehumanise a disabled person - reduce them to the ways in which their existence is difficult for other people, which it certainly may be but that is only a fraction of the picture of who they are as a person. I appreciated that the author, in the ‘thank you’ section, alluded to the fact that she had not presented her brother in his complex entirety, but I am undecided as to whether this footnote makes up for what had been said in the rest of the book. If this part hadn’t been there, this book would have been a solid 5-stars for me. Upon reflection at a later point I may decide to change it to a 5 but for now I am rating it 4.5 stars.
I found the sections where she talks about growing up with her profoundly disabled older brother quite confronting - in the context of this book it makes sense that she centres herself in that aspect of the narrative but I am still deciding how I feel about it over all - whether or not it is right for him not to be centred in the story of his own life - whether or not this should have been included at all, given that it is not the central focus of the book and, therefore, cannot hope to show all his complexity as a human. I find it hard to read about the negative impact of growing up with a profoundly disabled sibling because so often the tendency for an outsider seems to be to commiserate with the non-disabled sibling about how hard their life must have been and, conversely, not to recognise how hard the disabled sibling’s life has been and will continue to be until they die. I think these narratives can dehumanise a disabled person - reduce them to the ways in which their existence is difficult for other people, which it certainly may be but that is only a fraction of the picture of who they are as a person. I appreciated that the author, in the ‘thank you’ section, alluded to the fact that she had not presented her brother in his complex entirety, but I am undecided as to whether this footnote makes up for what had been said in the rest of the book. If this part hadn’t been there, this book would have been a solid 5-stars for me. Upon reflection at a later point I may decide to change it to a 5 but for now I am rating it 4.5 stars.
April 19, 2023
If a book about life on a sheep farm sounds prosaic, Maggie Mackellar’s new memoir is anything but. A lyrical exploration of nature, motherhood, family and the rhythms of agricultural life, Graft reminds us of the deeper meanings to be discovered when we slow down, breathe in and listen.
Set in eastern Tasmania where Mackellar lives with her second husband, children and a menagerie of animals, the book follows the seasonal cycles of wool farming in a year sabotaged by a severe drought that threatens livelihoods, claims lives and casts a shadow of hopelessness over every endeavour.
Motherhood in all its guises, both human and animal, is depicted with the clear-eyed perspective of one who understands the paradoxical nature of bonds that simultaneously entangle and estrange. From the fierce protectiveness of sheep defending their lambs against predators to the author’s ambivalence at watching her own children grow into independence, Mackellar’s words will resonate with every reader.
This, I think, is what makes “Graft” such compelling reading. You don’t have to be interested in sheep farming to be captivated. It’s not so much the seasons of crutching, breeding, lambing and shearing that we engage with, vividly depicted as they are, but those of life itself, its joys and sorrows, its losses, and unexpected gains and the resilience we share with the land to endlessly renew when the drought breaks.
Mackellar’s unique voice captures the sensory in every experience, from the dogs panting with delight, their “pink tongues bright in the still morning”, to the fruiting walnut tree with nuts that “seem to swell and pulse with a fluorescent glow” to “the smell of sheep sweet and sour”. She doesn’t just describe she takes us on a journey that we remember long after we close the book.
(Review published in April edition of Good Reading Magazine)
Set in eastern Tasmania where Mackellar lives with her second husband, children and a menagerie of animals, the book follows the seasonal cycles of wool farming in a year sabotaged by a severe drought that threatens livelihoods, claims lives and casts a shadow of hopelessness over every endeavour.
Motherhood in all its guises, both human and animal, is depicted with the clear-eyed perspective of one who understands the paradoxical nature of bonds that simultaneously entangle and estrange. From the fierce protectiveness of sheep defending their lambs against predators to the author’s ambivalence at watching her own children grow into independence, Mackellar’s words will resonate with every reader.
This, I think, is what makes “Graft” such compelling reading. You don’t have to be interested in sheep farming to be captivated. It’s not so much the seasons of crutching, breeding, lambing and shearing that we engage with, vividly depicted as they are, but those of life itself, its joys and sorrows, its losses, and unexpected gains and the resilience we share with the land to endlessly renew when the drought breaks.
Mackellar’s unique voice captures the sensory in every experience, from the dogs panting with delight, their “pink tongues bright in the still morning”, to the fruiting walnut tree with nuts that “seem to swell and pulse with a fluorescent glow” to “the smell of sheep sweet and sour”. She doesn’t just describe she takes us on a journey that we remember long after we close the book.
(Review published in April edition of Good Reading Magazine)
September 25, 2025
I’ve read quite a few stories recently about loss and grief and it is amazing to me that writers – particularly of memoir – can express these traumatic situations in such beautiful, lyrical ways. Maggie Mackellar achieves this in GRAFT (Penguin Random House 2023), a remarkable account of her year as a sheep farmer on the Tasmanian coast.
Dividing the book into the four seasons, Mackellar sharply observes the constant activity of Merino sheep farming – lambing, crutching, feeding, shearing, mating, weaning – all in the midst of a terrible drought. But this book is about so much more than sheep (about which I knew very little and had not a lot of interest).
GRAFT is about nature, birds, dogs, horses, humans interacting with the environment (for good or for ill), the climate, the changeable weather, the landscape. It is about women walking. It’s about motherhood and the dichotomous grief and pride of your adult children leaving home and making their own way in the world. It is about loss and death and the circle of life. It is poetic and literary but also has a strong narrative force that pushes the reader onwards.
Punctuated with gorgeous illustrations of birds and descriptions of their habitats, plumage, behaviour, nests and eggs, and also with intermittent departures from the narrative for sections titled: Words That Are Useful To Know, this mediative account of farm life, the toll it takes on the animals and the humans who keep them, the unpredictable rain, is combined with one woman’s almost diary of her emotions, struggles, frustrations, hopes, joys and fears as she experiences the most pragmatic and fundamental of occupations – farming – and tries to fit in mothering and writing along the way. She is a superb writer and I would recommend this to any reader, even (especially?) if you have no interest in sheep farming.
Dividing the book into the four seasons, Mackellar sharply observes the constant activity of Merino sheep farming – lambing, crutching, feeding, shearing, mating, weaning – all in the midst of a terrible drought. But this book is about so much more than sheep (about which I knew very little and had not a lot of interest).
GRAFT is about nature, birds, dogs, horses, humans interacting with the environment (for good or for ill), the climate, the changeable weather, the landscape. It is about women walking. It’s about motherhood and the dichotomous grief and pride of your adult children leaving home and making their own way in the world. It is about loss and death and the circle of life. It is poetic and literary but also has a strong narrative force that pushes the reader onwards.
Punctuated with gorgeous illustrations of birds and descriptions of their habitats, plumage, behaviour, nests and eggs, and also with intermittent departures from the narrative for sections titled: Words That Are Useful To Know, this mediative account of farm life, the toll it takes on the animals and the humans who keep them, the unpredictable rain, is combined with one woman’s almost diary of her emotions, struggles, frustrations, hopes, joys and fears as she experiences the most pragmatic and fundamental of occupations – farming – and tries to fit in mothering and writing along the way. She is a superb writer and I would recommend this to any reader, even (especially?) if you have no interest in sheep farming.
October 3, 2023
Having recently read Meadowlands by John Lewis-Stempel on a year in the life of an English meadow I stumbled upon this book while at the Canberra airport. It is a delightful Australian counterpart to Meadowlands and presents the tough Australian landscape in drought, which has a devastating impact on people's psyche, place and wildlife.
The commonality of both books is the quiet reflection on the natural world, each bird and animal moment observed melded to life events of the family, with references to poets and nature writers par excellence.
Another commonality is the life of sheep farming with the dangerous birthing process similar in both countries. I have always though it was very risky process to leave very pregnant ewes in the fields where inevitably there are problems birthing, with some mothers and lambs dying or tragically mothers rejecting their lambs. The natural world can be very cruel. I know I would not cope with the grief involved.
Nature writing is a growing genre with writers such as Helen MacDonald and Robert MacFarlane leading the way. Maggie Mackellar has a fine ear for the sounds of the natural world and how we all connect. I look forward to hearing more from Maggie.
The commonality of both books is the quiet reflection on the natural world, each bird and animal moment observed melded to life events of the family, with references to poets and nature writers par excellence.
Another commonality is the life of sheep farming with the dangerous birthing process similar in both countries. I have always though it was very risky process to leave very pregnant ewes in the fields where inevitably there are problems birthing, with some mothers and lambs dying or tragically mothers rejecting their lambs. The natural world can be very cruel. I know I would not cope with the grief involved.
Nature writing is a growing genre with writers such as Helen MacDonald and Robert MacFarlane leading the way. Maggie Mackellar has a fine ear for the sounds of the natural world and how we all connect. I look forward to hearing more from Maggie.
January 2, 2025
The cycle of life and death, the onset of an empty nest and the grind of drought all play out in this year on Maggie's Tassie sheep farm.
Made me reflect on my own experiences, even a distant memory of seeing Wool sorted in Goulburn Wool Sales during a school excursion. Not even sure if that place still exists.
Saying goodbye to beloved pets, particularly her old horse hit home, I've been there.
Also, this passage
We used to know, collectively, that death comes. Some of us still do, but it's not a shared knowledge; it's a quiet, sometimes shameful understanding in only those who have death thrust upon them
There's a lot of birth during lambing season but it can be a dicey time, particularly during drought.
As a memoir she doesn't go in for much repetition but she did do a PhD on country women's journals in her 20s and I found it fascinating that she says...
The sameness of the recordings made for boring reading at times....I was twenty-five when I was reading these women's lives. In thought they were writing to leave something permanent behind. But now I think they wrote so they could see themselves, so that they did not disappear.
I'm pleased that now that I've read this one Maggie won't disappear.
Highly recommended.
Made me reflect on my own experiences, even a distant memory of seeing Wool sorted in Goulburn Wool Sales during a school excursion. Not even sure if that place still exists.
Saying goodbye to beloved pets, particularly her old horse hit home, I've been there.
Also, this passage
We used to know, collectively, that death comes. Some of us still do, but it's not a shared knowledge; it's a quiet, sometimes shameful understanding in only those who have death thrust upon them
There's a lot of birth during lambing season but it can be a dicey time, particularly during drought.
As a memoir she doesn't go in for much repetition but she did do a PhD on country women's journals in her 20s and I found it fascinating that she says...
The sameness of the recordings made for boring reading at times....I was twenty-five when I was reading these women's lives. In thought they were writing to leave something permanent behind. But now I think they wrote so they could see themselves, so that they did not disappear.
I'm pleased that now that I've read this one Maggie won't disappear.
Highly recommended.
April 19, 2024
A year in the life of a sheep farmer, in South-East Tasmania in the drought. A book of memoir, spanning a life, and also the minute moments of life, death and survival on the hard Aussie land.
Maggie shares her family stories, as a sibling of a brother with severe disability, to the separation she experienced during periods of her childhood, to losses of her parents. She shares generously the intimate detail of her own family, its heartbreaking losses, her joys, fears, aloneness, and found love. Motherhood, struggle, pain, and then content partnership.
The visceral reality of farming, the birth and death of sheep stock, the harsh, hopelessness of drought. Desolate drought. The seasons, the hope, the eventual change.
Lambs lost, saved, nursed and bonded to a bereaved ewe. The pendulum of life.
This has brought to mind so much of country farm life I have never been privy to, never considered, never imagined. A book discovery thanks to the longlist, and a stark tale of the real climate change impact.
Maggie shares her family stories, as a sibling of a brother with severe disability, to the separation she experienced during periods of her childhood, to losses of her parents. She shares generously the intimate detail of her own family, its heartbreaking losses, her joys, fears, aloneness, and found love. Motherhood, struggle, pain, and then content partnership.
The visceral reality of farming, the birth and death of sheep stock, the harsh, hopelessness of drought. Desolate drought. The seasons, the hope, the eventual change.
Lambs lost, saved, nursed and bonded to a bereaved ewe. The pendulum of life.
This has brought to mind so much of country farm life I have never been privy to, never considered, never imagined. A book discovery thanks to the longlist, and a stark tale of the real climate change impact.
February 22, 2024
A lovely meditative account of the circle of life - as a mother and as a farmer- set in beautiful Tasmania with other encounters in Outback NSW and the Northern Territory. Whilst I didn’t grow up on a farm, I experienced so much of that life as all my grandparents and aunts and uncles were farmers around the country town I lived in and my dad spent most of his life as a dairy farmer. Life certainly was a circle of harvesting, shearing, lambing and drought and torrential rain and this story bought all of that back to me and I really enjoyed the feelings! There is lots in this book about mothering and how that role changes as children grow up and leave home. And also lots about lambing and birds and climate and the desperate hard work or graft that a farming life requires. The writing was beautiful and calm and thought provoking. I feel like this story may have a limited audience but I’m glad I read it.
November 9, 2024
4.5 stars
Growing up on a sheep farm, this biography just hit me in the soft, tender part of my memories of a childhood surrounded by the miracles and fragility of life.
Such beautiful writing.
Whilst MacKellar's life was filled with so much personal trauma, her passages covering motherhood and matrescence were incredibly moving.
I will be gifting this to my dad for Christmas and hope that anyone who grew up around sheep and on the land will get the opportunity to read this. For those that didn't, I hope they can appreciate the beauty in the everyday tasks on the land and the burden that comes with such heavy reliance on the weather 💔
Growing up on a sheep farm, this biography just hit me in the soft, tender part of my memories of a childhood surrounded by the miracles and fragility of life.
Such beautiful writing.
Whilst MacKellar's life was filled with so much personal trauma, her passages covering motherhood and matrescence were incredibly moving.
I will be gifting this to my dad for Christmas and hope that anyone who grew up around sheep and on the land will get the opportunity to read this. For those that didn't, I hope they can appreciate the beauty in the everyday tasks on the land and the burden that comes with such heavy reliance on the weather 💔
March 10, 2025
An excellently written memoir about life, death, and motherhood. Mackellar has a wonderful turn of phrase and way of painting a scene, however the thing I felt kept the book from that fifth star is I missed a joining of the narrative. When it ended, it felt underwhelming to me, less so than many of the chapters that came before it. Also, this is all about life on a farm so animal lovers be warned, there are some terrible descriptions of the natural order of things and the ending of many a sheep.
November 27, 2023
An original Australian memoir. Maggie Mackellar records a year of her life on a Merino wool farm on the east coast of Tasmania. This is a layered story. It is a lyrical observance of nature and farming and a thought-provoking tribute to motherhood. A few chapters are immensely moving. However, I found the concluding chapters about the breaking of the drought a tad cryptic and underwhelming so haven't rated it a five-star book.
April 4, 2024
Maggie’s beautiful memoir reflects on motherhood, the things that bind us to family and nature as she explores her deep connection to the land.
This is such a work of unvarnished beauty about living on the cusp of a natural life. Farming is on of the few man made occupations that balances precariously between the natural and the stylised world. Especially on standalone properties. A world where it is still imperative to follow the seasons. To feel their change, their impact.
And anyone that quotes Robin Wall Kimmerer is ok with me. Oh, and gloaming. I love that word.
This farm-born now city-living girl LOVED this.
This is such a work of unvarnished beauty about living on the cusp of a natural life. Farming is on of the few man made occupations that balances precariously between the natural and the stylised world. Especially on standalone properties. A world where it is still imperative to follow the seasons. To feel their change, their impact.
And anyone that quotes Robin Wall Kimmerer is ok with me. Oh, and gloaming. I love that word.
This farm-born now city-living girl LOVED this.
May 24, 2024
A beautiful memoir of the struggle to survive on a farm in Tasmania trapped in the heartbreak of a drought. The hard work, heart break, love, loss and beauty are all there. Working on the land as it becomes more inhospitable for all that try to survive on it. At the same time the hard work, heart break, love, loss and beauty are all there as Maggie talks about motherhood, sisterhood, loss of a husband and in time her mother.
May 5, 2025
“The world around me is layered in beauty, and death, and we are a part of it.”
A quiet contemplation on motherhood, entwined with an account of the authors life on a farm in Tasmania during a long drought year. Beautiful descriptive writing, for lovers of memoir and nature writing. I also liked the word definitions. I think this would be better in book format as I believe there are lovely illustrations in some editions.
A quiet contemplation on motherhood, entwined with an account of the authors life on a farm in Tasmania during a long drought year. Beautiful descriptive writing, for lovers of memoir and nature writing. I also liked the word definitions. I think this would be better in book format as I believe there are lovely illustrations in some editions.
August 29, 2025
This memoir focuses on a year living on a marino sheep farm and while not my usual fare, this was recommended to me by multiple people. Mackellar reflects on the power of the natural world as she fights to save lambs, lives through years of drought and tries to maintain a sense of her own identity as she reflects on motherhood and grief. It was far more affecting than I had anticipated with some truly beautiful writing.
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