Growing a Farmer: Reflection 1

I have mixed feelings about this book so far. I like how Timmermeister does not romanticize life on the farm. Rather, he presents what it is really like to be a farmer- difficult, messy, and unpredictable. In terms of his writing style, I like how it is very conversational. For the most part, the author uses common words rather than "beaurocratic" ones. This makes his writing easy to read and understand.  On the other hand, however, there are a ton of writing errors. I'm not sure if this was intentional, or if the editor missed them, but it can be quite distracting to me. Also, his writing can be dull and mundane at times. This is certainly not a riveting story. Perhaps the author intentionally moves the book at a slow pace, in order to represent how life on a farm can feel like. 

The layout of the novel is strange in that the story is nonlinear. Chapters are separated by the subject, rather than the exact order of acquired experiences. To me, this is not a huge flaw, but it is a nuisance.  I wonder if the book would have been more enjoyable if it had been in chronological order. I found Chapter 3 on his beekeeping hobby to be quite controversial. Kurt claims to love bees, yet his bees die every year and he has no idea why. Instead of investigating the cause of their death, he continues to buy more bees. In my opinion, if he is responsible for these bees, then he should really try and keep them alive to the best of his ability.