Paula and I have been reading Kurt Timmermeister’s 2011 book, Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land, which summarizes more than twenty years of establishing a small working farm on an island off of Seattle. A straightforward, inspiring book.

He learns that he can’t sell vegetables and make a profit, that he prefers sheep over mischievous goats, and, in the end, after several different endeavors, he focuses on making artisan cheese. He even builds a cheese cave.

Visit the farm’s site at Kurtwood Farms. And check out his book. There’s a lot in its no-nonsense prose — his love of the land, his desire to stay out of the city (after a successful career running a restaurant), and the somber, realistic details of butchering pigs. His story is characterized by idealism, uncertainty, and learning-as-you-go pragmaticism, and a great desire to make his farm a living, working, profitable enterprise.

Seems like — after twenty-some years — he has succeeded.