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A Farm Dies Once a Year
The summer he was thirty-one, Arlo Crawford returned home for the summer harvest at New Morning Farm--seventy-five acres tucked in a hollow in south-central Pennsylvania where his parents had been growing organic vegetables for almost forty years.
Like many summers before, Arlo returned to the family farm's familiar rhythms--rise, eat, bend, pick, sort, sweat, sleep. But this time he was also there to change his direction, like his father years ago. In the 1970s, well before the explosion of the farm-to-table and slow food movement, Arlo's father, Jim, left behind law school and Vietnam, and decided to give farming a try. Arlo's return also prompts a reexamination of a past tragedy: the murder of a neighboring farmer twenty years before. A chronicle of one full season on a farm, with all its small triumphs and inevitable setbacks, A Farm Dies Once a Year is a meditation on work--the true nature of it, and on taking pride in it--and a son's reckoning with a father's legacy. Above all, it is a striking portrait of how one man builds, sows, and harvests his way into a new understanding of the risks necessary to a life well-lived.
Like many summers before, Arlo returned to the family farm's familiar rhythms--rise, eat, bend, pick, sort, sweat, sleep. But this time he was also there to change his direction, like his father years ago. In the 1970s, well before the explosion of the farm-to-table and slow food movement, Arlo's father, Jim, left behind law school and Vietnam, and decided to give farming a try. Arlo's return also prompts a reexamination of a past tragedy: the murder of a neighboring farmer twenty years before. A chronicle of one full season on a farm, with all its small triumphs and inevitable setbacks, A Farm Dies Once a Year is a meditation on work--the true nature of it, and on taking pride in it--and a son's reckoning with a father's legacy. Above all, it is a striking portrait of how one man builds, sows, and harvests his way into a new understanding of the risks necessary to a life well-lived.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published June 18, 2013
About the author
Arlo Crawford
2 books4 followersArlo Crawford grew up on New Morning Farm, his family's farm in rural Pennsylvania. He has written for the New York Time Magazine and Gastronomica and has worked in book publishing, at art museums, and as a vegetable seller. His lives with his wife in San Francisco.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
May 12, 2014
I began this book eager to read of Arlo's experience growing up on New Morning Farm. My college boyfriend looked into working there 24 years ago. New Morning was fully staffed, and we were referred to Blue Moon Farm, where we lived and worked for nine months. We witnessed the murder that figures so prominently in this narrative. The author has attempted to dramatize a scene that he did not witness and played no part in. I remember him visiting the farm as an 11-year-old boy only twice that season: once for the funeral and once when his father came to help supervise planting. He may have viewed the court records, but he clearly did not take notes.
The conversation that took place earlier that day was not between Robb and Diana, it was between Robb and me. Robb did not yell or throw the book of game laws at me. There were no people in the fields to hear--it was too early in the season for there to be anyone there but the three of us. He did not use the words listed in quotation marks. He did not repeat his points over and over again. That happened later in the day, before he pulled the trigger of his shotgun.
When Robb returned, it was not shady. The birds were still calling to each other. Chloe was nowhere near the scene--she was half a mile away inside the house with her grandparents. Bert did not kneel down to plant one last plant. He raised his arms and turned away from the gun. Even more stunning, is the inaccuracy of his parents' locations at Bert's time of death. His father was not in his office; he was in the emergency waiting room with Bob and Lina and her father. His mother came to the farm to check on Lina's mother and Chloe.
There are many other inaccuracies that might have been corrected had the author bothered to contact either of us, but it's not that the facts are wrong that bothers me. The fact that he is capitalizing on a tragedy, using it to somehow beef up his own narrative, is problematic at best. Even without such a personal connection to this material, I would question the genuineness of someone who characterizes himself as being ineligible to apply to Harvard due to "middling" grades and test scores, only to reveal later that he attended Cornell. He is too eager to make himself likeable, and this comes across as condescending.
In order to revisit scenes from one's life, one must first have been there. Crawford is a talented wordsmith, and he writes beautiful sentences. Perhaps he should try his hand at fiction, for that is what this is.
The conversation that took place earlier that day was not between Robb and Diana, it was between Robb and me. Robb did not yell or throw the book of game laws at me. There were no people in the fields to hear--it was too early in the season for there to be anyone there but the three of us. He did not use the words listed in quotation marks. He did not repeat his points over and over again. That happened later in the day, before he pulled the trigger of his shotgun.
When Robb returned, it was not shady. The birds were still calling to each other. Chloe was nowhere near the scene--she was half a mile away inside the house with her grandparents. Bert did not kneel down to plant one last plant. He raised his arms and turned away from the gun. Even more stunning, is the inaccuracy of his parents' locations at Bert's time of death. His father was not in his office; he was in the emergency waiting room with Bob and Lina and her father. His mother came to the farm to check on Lina's mother and Chloe.
There are many other inaccuracies that might have been corrected had the author bothered to contact either of us, but it's not that the facts are wrong that bothers me. The fact that he is capitalizing on a tragedy, using it to somehow beef up his own narrative, is problematic at best. Even without such a personal connection to this material, I would question the genuineness of someone who characterizes himself as being ineligible to apply to Harvard due to "middling" grades and test scores, only to reveal later that he attended Cornell. He is too eager to make himself likeable, and this comes across as condescending.
In order to revisit scenes from one's life, one must first have been there. Crawford is a talented wordsmith, and he writes beautiful sentences. Perhaps he should try his hand at fiction, for that is what this is.
May 14, 2014
I was looking forward to this book coming out, and I really wanted to like it, which is why I didn't put it down with the first few inaccuracies that I came across. Having been to New Morning Farm and having a great appreciation for it's owners, I couldn't wait to learn more about them and revisit that beautiful place through the eyes of their son. Unfortunately this book is only half about the farm and them, and rather vague at best. Curiously the author fills the rest of the book by exploiting a tragedy that happened almost twenty-five years ago that he did not witness in his memoir. Perhaps the most painful aspect of this book is not only did the author not witness this event, he didn't even speak to the people that did, yet callously and inaccurately writes about them, using their names.
The author attempts to intertwine the story of the tragedy throughout his book, that happened at another farm when he was a kid, interjecting things attempting to romanticize. Why he would do this without ever speaking to the witnesses yet using their names and invented conversations, and then calling it a memoir is disturbing at best. It seemed like he was trying to paint a picture of himself to impress his contemporaries that he had grown up in a crazy environment.
The one person he sought out from the tragic event was also not a witness, but was seemingly used as a prop for this book, so it could make it look like he had an emotional connection.
I tried contacting the author to express my dismay that he would use people's names and not contact them beforehand, and then get tons of information wrong. The author referred to himself as a memoirist, not a journalist which somehow excuses him from using facts while describing events and attributing fake conversations that he nor anyone else that he knows was witness to, yet somehow he included in his memoir.
For a 250 page "memoir," there should not be so much fiction that anyone that knows these stories he is writing about, would have to actually throw this book across the room in disgust.
I would recommend that if you are given this book as a gift, that you should cut a square out of the middle pages, and use it as a secret compartment to store some marbles. Then years later someone might open the book and find those marbles, and it will give them something to be amazed by, otherwise it would just be a crappy book.
The author attempts to intertwine the story of the tragedy throughout his book, that happened at another farm when he was a kid, interjecting things attempting to romanticize. Why he would do this without ever speaking to the witnesses yet using their names and invented conversations, and then calling it a memoir is disturbing at best. It seemed like he was trying to paint a picture of himself to impress his contemporaries that he had grown up in a crazy environment.
The one person he sought out from the tragic event was also not a witness, but was seemingly used as a prop for this book, so it could make it look like he had an emotional connection.
I tried contacting the author to express my dismay that he would use people's names and not contact them beforehand, and then get tons of information wrong. The author referred to himself as a memoirist, not a journalist which somehow excuses him from using facts while describing events and attributing fake conversations that he nor anyone else that he knows was witness to, yet somehow he included in his memoir.
For a 250 page "memoir," there should not be so much fiction that anyone that knows these stories he is writing about, would have to actually throw this book across the room in disgust.
I would recommend that if you are given this book as a gift, that you should cut a square out of the middle pages, and use it as a secret compartment to store some marbles. Then years later someone might open the book and find those marbles, and it will give them something to be amazed by, otherwise it would just be a crappy book.
February 10, 2014
I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
I wanted to like this book, I really did, but overall I was disappointed. I was hoping to read a book about farming- the ups and the downs, the daily tasks, the characteristics of vegetables, etc... and though these things are mentioned in the book, I wouldn't call them the overall theme. Only two entire chapters are dedicated to the physical running of the farm- one to picking/ irrigation, the other to selling at market. (I found myself thinking that I wish one of the apprentices were writing the book instead)
The book spends a considerable amount of time discussing the family friend Bert and his untimely death. Though I'm sorry for everyone's loss, I just didn't feel that it was all that interesting to read about. I kept feeling that if the book were actually written as two books- the farm, and Bert- maybe it would flow and read better, and more time could be dedicated to each subject.
I guess I thought I would be reading a book about a 30 year old son, who comes home to help work his parents farm, who meets the others on the farm, and forms relationships, whose out in the field from sunup to sundown with everyone else, and who learns something in the process. Unfortunately, that's not how the book reads.
Instead, this book left me thinking that I'm not sure what the overall point of this memoir was- what did the author want me to gain?- who is actually the intended audience?, and where do we go from here? Maybe there is no point... :/
And as a last point, though the author and I are the same age, I just couldn't find myself relating to him. I felt that he was a bit smug and was quick to paint himself in good light. I know this always contributes to a more difficult read.
I wanted to like this book, I really did, but overall I was disappointed. I was hoping to read a book about farming- the ups and the downs, the daily tasks, the characteristics of vegetables, etc... and though these things are mentioned in the book, I wouldn't call them the overall theme. Only two entire chapters are dedicated to the physical running of the farm- one to picking/ irrigation, the other to selling at market. (I found myself thinking that I wish one of the apprentices were writing the book instead)
The book spends a considerable amount of time discussing the family friend Bert and his untimely death. Though I'm sorry for everyone's loss, I just didn't feel that it was all that interesting to read about. I kept feeling that if the book were actually written as two books- the farm, and Bert- maybe it would flow and read better, and more time could be dedicated to each subject.
I guess I thought I would be reading a book about a 30 year old son, who comes home to help work his parents farm, who meets the others on the farm, and forms relationships, whose out in the field from sunup to sundown with everyone else, and who learns something in the process. Unfortunately, that's not how the book reads.
Instead, this book left me thinking that I'm not sure what the overall point of this memoir was- what did the author want me to gain?- who is actually the intended audience?, and where do we go from here? Maybe there is no point... :/
And as a last point, though the author and I are the same age, I just couldn't find myself relating to him. I felt that he was a bit smug and was quick to paint himself in good light. I know this always contributes to a more difficult read.
May 7, 2014
I wanted to read this book because while I have never lived on a farm, I have raised chickens and have friends that do have farms and have helped out on them. So I wanted to read this book about farming. Which is what I was under the impression that I was going to get. Yes, I did get some of that when Mr. Crawford returned to his family farm and helped work on it. But I craved more...more details...more farming...more, more, more. What I mean by this is that yes the author did talk about what he had to do on his family's farm but not in lots of details. Not to discredit the author's story about his life and family as not being interesting but I just was looking forward to the farm life than I was really about the childhood or the different jobs and returns that the author took. Plus, this was at times a slow read for me. So you could say that the title of the book was a little deceiving to me.
August 5, 2016
An egocentric look at a 30 something person's life and desires, and past growing up on an organic farm. A compelling idea for a story, and yet, very little that held my interest. This felt more like reading the author's rambling journals, and less of the drama that makes a memoir an interesting story.
I would have liked to hear less about the death of the neighbor farmer, and more about the inner workings of the farm that were just hinted at throughout the book.
I would have liked to hear less about the death of the neighbor farmer, and more about the inner workings of the farm that were just hinted at throughout the book.
February 24, 2015
For some reason I misread the title and thought this would be a Wendell Berry-esque book deploring the loss of family farms across America, as in “a farm dies once a day.” Instead, it’s a memoir of a summer Arlo Crawford spent back at his parents’ New Morning Farm in Pennsylvania while he was between careers and trying to figure out what to do with his life. “By the time I was thirty and still didn’t have a savings account, I was also starting to understand the unassailable truth that money was the only way to really be a part of the world. You didn’t have to have a lot of it, but you had to have it.” Ain’t that the truth!
Along with his girlfriend Sarah, who joined him from Cambridge, Massachusetts for part of the summer and even shared the makeshift shelter he made on his parents’ property, Crawford threw himself into the rhythms of growing, harvesting and selling. I was amused to hear about the strict USDA criteria for selling their organic produce: “For zucchini, each squash was required to be six to nine inches long, with a diameter of no more than two inches. The squash couldn’t have any obvious dents or dings...The ideal was consistency and quality.” Unfortunately this means that almost as many vegetables go to waste as get sold.
If you’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to live and work on a farm, this memoir will give you a good taste. You might also like to read it in conjunction with a novel like Some Luck by Jane Smiley. I found it pleasant enough, if less than thrilling.
I was delighted to win a copy in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.
Along with his girlfriend Sarah, who joined him from Cambridge, Massachusetts for part of the summer and even shared the makeshift shelter he made on his parents’ property, Crawford threw himself into the rhythms of growing, harvesting and selling. I was amused to hear about the strict USDA criteria for selling their organic produce: “For zucchini, each squash was required to be six to nine inches long, with a diameter of no more than two inches. The squash couldn’t have any obvious dents or dings...The ideal was consistency and quality.” Unfortunately this means that almost as many vegetables go to waste as get sold.
If you’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to live and work on a farm, this memoir will give you a good taste. You might also like to read it in conjunction with a novel like Some Luck by Jane Smiley. I found it pleasant enough, if less than thrilling.
I was delighted to win a copy in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.
April 16, 2014
I particularly liked three things about this memoir of a young-thirties guy who leaves a life in Boston to go back to his parents' organic farm in Pennsylvania for the harvest season:
It's partially about figuring out what to do with your life. The author's parents made one decision -- start an organic farm -- when they were young, and he's trying to come to some sort of conclusion about his own life, to find some direction. The answers aren't easy or necessarily clear-cut, but in contemplating what he wants to do alongside similar sorts of choices that his parents faced, he comes to appreciate and identify with them more as well as understand himself.
Before Crawford moved to Boston he also spent a number of years in New York, and his time working in publishing and living in the East Village very much reminded me of my own life there at the same time.
It's really beautiful at describing place: in this case, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, where New Morning Farm is located. Reading the book you get a sense of what the Farm and its surroundings looked like, and the way the farm operated, but also the place of these urban back-to-the-land interlopers among the long-time residents of this part of rural Pennsylvania. The murder of another farmer by a local serves as a way to explore these issues, but so too is a much shorter scene involving the Crawfords' neighbors and an ill-fated dog.
It's partially about figuring out what to do with your life. The author's parents made one decision -- start an organic farm -- when they were young, and he's trying to come to some sort of conclusion about his own life, to find some direction. The answers aren't easy or necessarily clear-cut, but in contemplating what he wants to do alongside similar sorts of choices that his parents faced, he comes to appreciate and identify with them more as well as understand himself.
Before Crawford moved to Boston he also spent a number of years in New York, and his time working in publishing and living in the East Village very much reminded me of my own life there at the same time.
It's really beautiful at describing place: in this case, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, where New Morning Farm is located. Reading the book you get a sense of what the Farm and its surroundings looked like, and the way the farm operated, but also the place of these urban back-to-the-land interlopers among the long-time residents of this part of rural Pennsylvania. The murder of another farmer by a local serves as a way to explore these issues, but so too is a much shorter scene involving the Crawfords' neighbors and an ill-fated dog.
February 12, 2016
What a difficult book to describe.
A FARM DIES ONCE A YEAR is about a unique lifestyle. A rural lifestyle centered on the new, smaller organic farms and how they survive and thrive in the modern world. But it's also about the honesty of that heavy, difficult work and how it combines sublime beauty with sweat and dirty hands.
Beyond that, A FARM DIES ONCE A YEAR is also an exploration of self. Arlo Crawford takes a look at his childhood, where he is now, and where he might go in the future. And as part of that he eventually examines the most traumatic even of his childhood, the senseless murder of a close family friend by a retired postal worker.
I really enjoyed this book. I like gardening and I loved the special view of farming on 75 acres that Arlo shared with me. And this book is so beautifully written.
If you liked Annie Proulx' BIRD CLOUD: A Memoir of Place and/or Barbara Kingsolver's ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE: A Year of Food Life, I would think you would enjoy this book.
In fact, if I was to rank the 3, I would say that Arlo Crawford's book was by far the best.
A FARM DIES ONCE A YEAR is about a unique lifestyle. A rural lifestyle centered on the new, smaller organic farms and how they survive and thrive in the modern world. But it's also about the honesty of that heavy, difficult work and how it combines sublime beauty with sweat and dirty hands.
Beyond that, A FARM DIES ONCE A YEAR is also an exploration of self. Arlo Crawford takes a look at his childhood, where he is now, and where he might go in the future. And as part of that he eventually examines the most traumatic even of his childhood, the senseless murder of a close family friend by a retired postal worker.
I really enjoyed this book. I like gardening and I loved the special view of farming on 75 acres that Arlo shared with me. And this book is so beautifully written.
If you liked Annie Proulx' BIRD CLOUD: A Memoir of Place and/or Barbara Kingsolver's ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE: A Year of Food Life, I would think you would enjoy this book.
In fact, if I was to rank the 3, I would say that Arlo Crawford's book was by far the best.
November 21, 2013
Possibly my favorite thing about "A Farm Dies Once a Year" is that I know the countryside of the farm in the title. The town names are all familiar, and I can picture the shale in the soil, the rippling ridges of the Appalachians, the Mennonites in their yards hanging up the laundry, the flat lands east of the mountains with their lonely farmhouses and vast fields of corn.
And my second favorite thing is that I know all about this "back to the land" big idea. Let's go run a farm, let's get our hands dirty, let's feel alive. Farm work is hard, eating vegetables that you grew yourself is magical.
The intimate descriptions of Crawford's family, childhood, and the inner workings of an organic farm were utterly charming. I didn't want it to end. For a little while there I was back home in high summer in Western Maryland, listening to the cicadas in the drowsy August heat.
To the author: Thanks so much for sharing your summer back on the farm, and your family, with us.
And my second favorite thing is that I know all about this "back to the land" big idea. Let's go run a farm, let's get our hands dirty, let's feel alive. Farm work is hard, eating vegetables that you grew yourself is magical.
The intimate descriptions of Crawford's family, childhood, and the inner workings of an organic farm were utterly charming. I didn't want it to end. For a little while there I was back home in high summer in Western Maryland, listening to the cicadas in the drowsy August heat.
To the author: Thanks so much for sharing your summer back on the farm, and your family, with us.
June 14, 2014
A very special read since I've been shopping at New Morning Farm's market at Sheridan School here in DC for 26 years. Every Saturday morning we (my middle son and I, these days) stop in and gather seasonal, organic produce, taking joy in what's new and beautiful. All week we relish the fresh-picked goodness and return for more radiantly healthy gems the following Saturday--a glorious rhythm, woven by now into the very fiber of our hearts.
October 14, 2013
First book this year that made me cry.
August 5, 2017
This book is a bout a young man on his way to finding himself as he reconciles that he does not want to take over his parent's farm in Pennsylvania. It is sweet, poignant, sad, funny and well written. The author has talent in writing. I really enjoyed it.
July 20, 2014
I particularly liked the section of the book that described the activities and events involved with selling at the farmers market in the city and the authors fathers relationship with the customers and his love for and excitement about the produce he offered. A ton of hard work but such an enjoyable scene and the essence of Farm to Table. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone had the ability to buy their food from such a farmer?
November 26, 2015
... and it teaches you how to build a cabin (sort of).
May 16, 2023
Arlo Crawford leaves his job in Cambridge, MA, to visit the organic farm started by his parents to help him decide the direction he wants to take. His girlfriend joins him. A memoir of one summer and fall, the book brings in the murder of another farmer when he was 12 years old, and its effects on the neighbors and family.
New Morning Farm is located in Pennsylvania, among the Mennonites and others on the edge of Appalachia. The author's parents were hippies seeking a significant life, and chose farming. But farming is work, and the young couple never stinted, building their farm into a thriving business that required and hired laborers and interns, to ensure that produce got to the DC market and elsewhere. There is nothing glamorous in farming, and the author shows that, taking the reader into the fields, onto the trucks, and into the markets. In a single line he can convey the tensions in the business for farmers and vendors. After the important tomato crop is lost to blight, the raspberries turn out to be prolific and delicious. A market in DC buys part of the bumper crop, but the receiver disdains them, acting like Arlo should be grateful to be able to sell them. Only after the manager thinks Arlo has left does the author overhear the manager's ecstatic appraisal of the berries to other staff.
Farming is a low-key occupation, hard work with little room for complaining about nature and less time for dawdling on a day off, and the book carries that tone. It's not for everyone, but then neither is farming. Highly recommended.
New Morning Farm is located in Pennsylvania, among the Mennonites and others on the edge of Appalachia. The author's parents were hippies seeking a significant life, and chose farming. But farming is work, and the young couple never stinted, building their farm into a thriving business that required and hired laborers and interns, to ensure that produce got to the DC market and elsewhere. There is nothing glamorous in farming, and the author shows that, taking the reader into the fields, onto the trucks, and into the markets. In a single line he can convey the tensions in the business for farmers and vendors. After the important tomato crop is lost to blight, the raspberries turn out to be prolific and delicious. A market in DC buys part of the bumper crop, but the receiver disdains them, acting like Arlo should be grateful to be able to sell them. Only after the manager thinks Arlo has left does the author overhear the manager's ecstatic appraisal of the berries to other staff.
Farming is a low-key occupation, hard work with little room for complaining about nature and less time for dawdling on a day off, and the book carries that tone. It's not for everyone, but then neither is farming. Highly recommended.
April 24, 2022
I enjoyed this memoir by Arlo Crawford of “A Farm Dies Once a Year”. Some books are intense with a lot of detail. “Farm” is easy reading, relaxing.
The writer had been living in New York and then Cambridge, Massachusetts, for years before he decided to return home to the farm for a few months before relocating with his girlfriend, Sarah, to San Francisco. This was where he grew up and was his parents farm. Hippies from the 70’s, they wanted to do organic gardening and stayed with it. It is a large organic farm now with many apprentices to work it. He was never interested in farming himself and he found himself at a loss for what he wanted to do with his life.
When he first arrives, he sets off to build himself a cabin out in the woods. A lot of detail went into this, and shows this was his pride. Sarah comes out with him by the summer. He explains a lot about the work required to keep the farm profitable, the various vegetables to be worked. The tomato blight hits the farm that summer and destroys the entire crop, the most profitable crop there. He showed his fathers struggle with this huge loss. Every Saturday they take trucks loaded to a farmers market in D.C. The story winds down at the end with the autumn and the farm dying, the quietness of the country.
This was a well-written account, evoking both the beauty of the countryside and the sheer hard work of farming a large operation and marketing the produce. I enjoyed it very much.
The writer had been living in New York and then Cambridge, Massachusetts, for years before he decided to return home to the farm for a few months before relocating with his girlfriend, Sarah, to San Francisco. This was where he grew up and was his parents farm. Hippies from the 70’s, they wanted to do organic gardening and stayed with it. It is a large organic farm now with many apprentices to work it. He was never interested in farming himself and he found himself at a loss for what he wanted to do with his life.
When he first arrives, he sets off to build himself a cabin out in the woods. A lot of detail went into this, and shows this was his pride. Sarah comes out with him by the summer. He explains a lot about the work required to keep the farm profitable, the various vegetables to be worked. The tomato blight hits the farm that summer and destroys the entire crop, the most profitable crop there. He showed his fathers struggle with this huge loss. Every Saturday they take trucks loaded to a farmers market in D.C. The story winds down at the end with the autumn and the farm dying, the quietness of the country.
This was a well-written account, evoking both the beauty of the countryside and the sheer hard work of farming a large operation and marketing the produce. I enjoyed it very much.
July 26, 2025
First of all, I'm glad I didn't listen to the 1 star reviewers. The murder was a very minor part of this story, which centered around a single growing season on the farm. I liked the authors voice... I just didn't love that he seemed so lost. The mentions of casual sex, smoking joints, and cocaine use didn't add to the story at all. At the time, he was a Cornell alum who was a produce manager in San Francisco and that seemed like such a waste to me! A quick Google shows he seems to have hit his stride in the years since.
February 22, 2017
This was a nice and easy read. Arlo tells his story in an engaging manner which, while the content isn't all that exciting or interesting, ends up feeling very comfortable... like an old favorite t-shirt. I appreciated his wit, attention to detail, and completely genuine approach. I would highly recommend this book.
May 1, 2018
What an amazing book. Makes me very proud to be farming my land, raising animals, and living in nature EVERY SINGLE DAY! Thank you Arlo for capturing what an incredible life it is to be a producing farmer in our day!
November 12, 2020
Not only about a farm but also about how people communicate with one another and explores various relationship. Read for a book club and liked it but would not have picked it up otherwise. A good discovery!
January 26, 2024
Arlo has a way of writing that helps you to imagine the world he is stepping into. The nostalgia he evokes and the life lessons he learns help the reader to understand a world they may have no experience in.
January 18, 2025
I really enjoyed this book! It made me want to visit this area and find those farms and farm products.
October 23, 2025
Gracefully written. I appreciated the quiet, understated artistry of this book.
August 8, 2014
Continuing the summer of memoirs. This book was much more than I expected. When Arlo returned to his parent's farm, I expected him to "find himself" during the long growing season he spent with his parents and various workers that called New Morning Farm home that year. He was also joined there by his girlfriend Sarah. I didn't think she would last and was pleasantly surprised that they married after. One major truth I learned...farming is hard work and not glamorous! I always thought I would like a small farm but his description of the work made it apparent I would not have really wanted to slave away morning to night. What made me very sad while reading was the fact that his parents were hippies that escaped corporate America but the man Arlo described his father to be while he was running the farm was not very different from an executive running a firm. Working all hours in his office, barking orders to his employees and constantly on the phone , marketing his business and worrying about the bottom line. The man his father became was not very different from his former colleagues in law school. The clothes and vehicles were different but the worry and stress were just the same. How could they really enjoy what they had on the farm? It was all work and business. All in all, a well written story and any book that makes you pause in your day and think is worth the time you devote to reading it. Oh, and thanks to the public library where I saw it on the recent released book shelf and picked it up.
March 27, 2014
Arlo Crawford's book is perhaps the first by the son of a farmer couple who went "back to the land" and built a life. He peels back the layers on this often-times romantic adventure and shows how tough it is to build a farm business in rural America, raise a family and find a place amid the locals.
Although I know the farm and the farmer (and the author), I had no idea of how rural the area actually was in terms of the lack of opportunity and the wide gulf between the Crawfords and their (often much poorer) neighbors. A recurrent narrative motif involves a neighbor who was shot to death (his dogs were barking too loud) but the senseless act almost makes sense in the backwoods country that Crawford describes, in which dogs are shot too. It doesn't come as a surprise that the author had no desire to make a life there, and in fact thought about fleeing since he was a teen.
In short, it isn't the romantic picture of the organic farm we often hear about. It's a tough life, but the Crawfords have made it into their home and there is much to say about it. The work is hard, but the living is honest and I get the sense that the farmers have a better shot than those who toss their lot into a much a larger system (like those in Chris Leonard's "A Meat Racket") and don't stand a chance.
A must read by anyone thinking of making a life on a farm.
Although I know the farm and the farmer (and the author), I had no idea of how rural the area actually was in terms of the lack of opportunity and the wide gulf between the Crawfords and their (often much poorer) neighbors. A recurrent narrative motif involves a neighbor who was shot to death (his dogs were barking too loud) but the senseless act almost makes sense in the backwoods country that Crawford describes, in which dogs are shot too. It doesn't come as a surprise that the author had no desire to make a life there, and in fact thought about fleeing since he was a teen.
In short, it isn't the romantic picture of the organic farm we often hear about. It's a tough life, but the Crawfords have made it into their home and there is much to say about it. The work is hard, but the living is honest and I get the sense that the farmers have a better shot than those who toss their lot into a much a larger system (like those in Chris Leonard's "A Meat Racket") and don't stand a chance.
A must read by anyone thinking of making a life on a farm.
May 14, 2014
Imagine yourself sitting down at a desk, keyboard in front of you, and writing a love letter to your parents. You want to tell them how much you love them, how appreciative you are of the way they raised you, how much you admire their strength, and how you will never truly feel as if you have lived up to their example. You want them to understand how much they mean to you, how truly magnificent they are in your eyes. You want to thank them for allowing you to have your own life, to follow your own path, even though it's not the one they themselves had chosen. But most of all, you just want to say I love you. A Farm Dies Once a Year, is that letter. It's not in the words you would have used, but that's only because it's not your story, it's Arlo Crawford's.
With this book, he opened up this part of his story for the rest of us to experience. The love and devotion his feels towards his parents, and towards their lives, wafts from each page. He set the example on what it means to connect back to you roots, to really explore your childhood through mature eyes, and to allow yourself to say thank you. He gives us all permission to go back home, to reconnect with our families and with our pasts. But most of all, he makes it cool for us adults to tell our parents thank you, that we love them, cherish them, and that they will be missed when they are gone.
With this book, he opened up this part of his story for the rest of us to experience. The love and devotion his feels towards his parents, and towards their lives, wafts from each page. He set the example on what it means to connect back to you roots, to really explore your childhood through mature eyes, and to allow yourself to say thank you. He gives us all permission to go back home, to reconnect with our families and with our pasts. But most of all, he makes it cool for us adults to tell our parents thank you, that we love them, cherish them, and that they will be missed when they are gone.
February 10, 2017
This is the story of Arlo Crawford's summer spent at his family's vegetable farm in rural Pennsylvania. It's where he grew up and it's where he returns as an adult, seeking his purpose in life. Mr. Crawford does an exquisite job of weaving together the threads of his childhood, his parents' devotion to their farm, rich descriptions of the tremendous amount of work involved, and deep soul examination. He pretty much ties all the threads together in a knot of love and appreciation for being part of the minority of our population that were raised on farms.
April 27, 2014
This book came to me at the right time in my life. It did not take me long to hooked. I felt all those things Arlo describes about his life in Massachusetts (a weird coincidence I also work at an art museum). I really connected with this book, even though I have never lived on a farm and, despite all of his great descriptions, I really do not have any desire to. Even so, reading Arlo's journey that summer he spent on the farm truly engrossed me. People who saw me reading this book always asked me what it was about (its a really great title and hard not to be intrigued). After I explain its about a guy who leaves his city life and goes to his family'e farm, they look at me blankly expecting more. I do not have much else to tell them. There is not a whole lot that happens. Irregardless, I could not wait for them moments where I could pick this book back up. I some ways I didn't want anything crazy to happen. I just wanted to spend time on New Morning Farm. Maybe that is its genius. If I read this a few years ago or a few year from now maybe it would not have resonated like it does for me right now, but I loved it. Its a great read and I would recommend it to anyone feeling kinda rudderless in their life.
June 24, 2014
Someone really needs to tell 20 somethings and 30 somethings that memoir should be memorable. Very disappointed in this book-I expected to find out a little bit about what the author's actual life was like growing up on his parent's organic produce farm. Instead we get a boring self- centered story of one summer when Crawford returns to the farm with his city loving girl friend ( whose only comment after meeting some local Plain Mennonites is that they are weird)after figuring he has nothing else to do since his art museum jobs in Boston have dried up. He builds a perfect tiny house with no instruction, disses on all of the poor white trash neighbors and tries to connect a fairly straight forward local murder from 20 years before with his own life. The parents who provided his boarding school and Ivy League education are not even cartoons they are so peripheral- we never learn their names and he describes them only as a comparison to his well- dressed girl friend. No one other than Arlo has any depth, and there is not much depth in a 31 year old who can't figure out what to do with his life. I did learn a little bit about the business workings of a largish truck farm on the east coast.
October 14, 2014
This was a disappointing farm read for me. Arlo Crawford's parents were "back-to-the-land" hippies who decided to try to make a living farming vegetables - and they've been successful. Arlo and his sister were raised on the farm, but never wanted to come back and help run it or take it over from their parents. This book is about Arlo coming back when he's in his early 30's and between jobs and isn't sure what he wants to do next. He works the summer on the farm with his girlfriend Sarah. When Arlo was 12 his parents good friend Bert, who was also a farmer, was murdered on his farm by a drunk neighbor. A lot of the book is about that incident and how is affected Arlo and his family. Obviously, it was a shocking, terrible event, so it's understandable why it's brought up, but it does become the focus of a lot of the book.
Overall, it was disappointing to me because while Arlo seems to genuinely love the farm and enjoy working there, he still doesn't want to take over from his parents. There is such a huge need for more small, sustainable farms that I hope his parent's farm doesn't fulfill the title one day and become A Farm Dies Once a Year. There are a lot better farm memoirs out there than this one.
Overall, it was disappointing to me because while Arlo seems to genuinely love the farm and enjoy working there, he still doesn't want to take over from his parents. There is such a huge need for more small, sustainable farms that I hope his parent's farm doesn't fulfill the title one day and become A Farm Dies Once a Year. There are a lot better farm memoirs out there than this one.
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