This Common Ground - by Scott Chaskey (Paperback)

About the Book

Chaskey's observations reflect a first-hand knowledge of the interdependence of soils, plants, animals and humans. His contagious sense of wonder and artistic sensibility illustrate why planting and reaping are such an important part of what defines the human community.

Book Synopsis

In the tradition of Michael Pollan, Joan Gussow, and Verlyn Klinkenborg's The Rural Life, This Common Ground is an inspirational evocation of a life lived close to the earth, written by the head farmer at one of the country's first community-supported farms. By reflecting on four seasons of activity at his beloved Quail Hill Farm in eastern Long Island, Scott Chaskey offers stirring insight into the connections between land and the human family. Whether writing about the voice of a small wren nesting in the lemon balm or a meadow of oats, millet, and peas rising to silver and green after a fresh rain, this poet-farmer's contagious sense of wonder brings us back to our bond with the soil.

Review Quotes

An elegy to the land and to the creatures who inhabit it... the book is also a gardener's bible. (Anne Raver, "The New York Times")

About the Author

Scott Chaskey earned an M.A. in creative writing from Antioch College. For the last fourteen years, he has worked as a land steward and farmer for the Peconic Land Trust at Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, New York. A pioneer of the community farming movement, he is the president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association and on the board for the Center for Whole Communities in Vermont.

On the web: http: //www.peconiclandtrust.org, http: //www.wholecommunities.org