The Land of Milk and Uncle Honey: Memories from the Farm of My Youth

If you grew up on a family farm, large or small, and you are looking for memory-triggers of that experience, I have one piece of advice: BUY THIS BOOK! Guebert and his daughter, Mary Grace Foxwell, have compiled the best of his columns in Farm and Food File that deal with his boyhood on a dairy farm in southern Illinois. You will meet "the lovely Catherine," his wife, his Lutheran family, one hundred Holsteins, many farm workers who remind you of Frost's "Death of the Hired Man," including Hoard the Dairyman and the most accident-prone relative in the world, Uncle Honey, who is a one-man demolition crew. An unparalled crafter of words, Guebert can turn a phrase with the best of them. He is the master of the one-line nostalgic closing sentence, and you will find yourself crying, then laughing, as you turn the pages onto episode after episode. If you don't read this, you are missing a great reading experience!

I have to admit a bias before I write this review. I am one of "uncle" Honey's grandsons. And like Alan's daughter, Indian Farms was a magical place when I was young. I even remember Alan coming down to the pond to collect his youngest brother Christopher to do some work in the barn while his two northern cousins were swimming with him. When my brother and I asked if we could keep swimming I will never forget the simple "no". Not even my father could convey such finality in one syllable. There was no anger, no humor, no raised voice, just a simple one word answer as he was walking back to the dairy barn. (I need to add that there were no hard feelings either).Like Alan's father, I too once felt the bite of "uncle Honey" helping me tighten a nut on a bolt with a set of pliers. Unlike Alan I got to see my Grandmother, his Aunt Esther light into him like a pit bull that had been beaten and teased with a raw steak for a couple days after her 5 year old grandson came crying to her. Although I can not remember the stories, I do remember my parents and grandparents talking about Ollie and Jackie and Howard. I am sure I met Howard whenever I went to the farm to gather some fresh milk with grandpa, but all I remember was him talking so someone while his northern, city living grandson stared in wonder at all the cows. I remember the sadness in my mother when she heard of Jackie's passing.What I didn't remember until years later was how when after a visit to the farm was how my father sold the house in town and moved us to a small fifty acre farm after his sons asked him why our cousin Chris had to stop playing and go work. It was summer wasn't it? My brother and I never really did become farmers, but our neighbors were, and we did help them bale hay some years. We did however become outdoors men after that move. No, we didn't poach, but we did hunt whenever we could. That also, like farming in some ways, takes patience, study and work to do successfully. So you can say that Indian Farms influenced more than just the lives of those who lived and worked there, even the visitors came away better people.Shortly before he passed, and even though I was very young, "uncle Honey" told me something, They might have been the last words he ever spoke to me, I don't know, but he said "to be a man you need three things; Faith, hard work and love". Alan's book tells how he learned these three things early in his life on the farm of his youth. If you read carefully, you will learn it to, from men who worked harder and longer than most people today ever will.In closing I can only say one thing. Its all true !!!!!!

Alan Guebert has not lived a life of international intrigue or Hollywood glamor, so why would he write a memoir and why should you read it? He explains in his Acknowledgements why he wrote it: his daughter (and editor), Mary Grace Foxwell, "pulled and pushed" him into writing it. By the time you finish the Prologue, you'll know why you should read it. Guebert writes about growing up on an Illinois dairy farm with such warmth and humor that he convinces you that the farm provided a far better setting than any world capital or film location. Not long into the book you're wishing that you had grown up on a dairy farm. In fact you're convinced that anyone who didn't is culturally deprived. He talks about family, work, tribulations and rewards in such simple, yet elegant language that eccentric farm hands seem more noble than any royalty and the farm house more solid than any castle. Guebert has Garrison Keillor's gift of evoking a time a place populated by people you'd like to know. You'll find a visit to Indian Farm, the farm of his youth, a most pleasant vacation.

I knew nothing about this book but bought it as I regularly read the author's agricultural editorials in the newspaper. It's a wonderful, true story of this man growing up on a family dairy farm in the heart of the Midwest. The characters are real, the tales are true and Alan's writing grabs one's heart from the beginning to the end.

Funny, witty and a great story. The writer is a cousin to my wife, so there is a connection but I would love this book regardless. I grew up in farming country and I can relate to every story in this book. The descriptions of farm life are fantastic and the tales of Uncle Honey will make you cringe and laugh at the same time. What an excellent story of family life in middle America.

I chose this book because I began reading Mr. Gueberts column in the local Sunday paper. I enjoyed the columns immensely and I have enjoyed the book just as much or more. Unknown at the time my husband and I drove through Illinois right past his parents farm on a trip to Kentucky, in the fall of 2014 this was before we started to read his column. That has made reading the book even more enjoyable, because we loved the land where the farm was located. Excellent collection and wonderful stories.