Dino, Godzilla, and the Pigs: My Life on Our Missouri Hog Farm

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Mary Elizabeth Fricke's story shows the extraordinary courage of the ordinary woman. She was raised in a farm family but looked forward to fulfillment as a mother and homemaker. She had never done "men's work", never aspired to it, never even learned to drive a shift car. Then she fell in love with and married a farmer. And in the Farm Crisis of 1986, when the need arose, she found the strength to transform herself from traditional woman to full-time farm worker. Her first job was clipping the tusks and tails of,...
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New York, N. Y. 1993 Hardcover New in New jacket 12mo-over 6?"-7?" tall. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 One woman's account of daily life on a Missouri farm describes in grapic detail the ... Fricke's struggle to hold on to the family farm & why it continues, what rural life is about; hers is the authentic voice of a modern American farm woman. New in New unclipped jacket, no names or markings, Illustrated, 185 crisp, clean & solid pp. Read more Show Less

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More About This Book

Overview

Mary Elizabeth Fricke's story shows the extraordinary courage of the ordinary woman. She was raised in a farm family but looked forward to fulfillment as a mother and homemaker. She had never done "men's work", never aspired to it, never even learned to drive a shift car. Then she fell in love with and married a farmer. And in the Farm Crisis of 1986, when the need arose, she found the strength to transform herself from traditional woman to full-time farm worker. Her first job was clipping the tusks and tails of, and vaccinating, one hundred three-day-old pigs while their terrifying six hundred pound mothers loomed over her. When she emerged from the farrowing room (after spending five hours on a job that would have taken her husband or his father no more than an hour) she was exhausted but exhilarated. She had met her first challenge. Mary found herself helping to care for a 1,500-sow herd of pigs, operating the enormous, dangerous machinery the modern farmer uses for field work, putting in long hours of arduous labor under the most trying conditions, often to be frustrated in the end by natural calamities beyond human control. Mary Fricke's utterly honest and gripping account of daily life on a Missouri farm describes in graphic detail the Frickes' struggle to hold on to the family farm and why it continues, what rural life is all about today and what it means to her. Hers is the authentic voice of an modern American farm woman, clear-eyed, unsentimental and indomitable.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
In a postscript written from Hermann (pop. 3000) in flooded Missouri, Fricke tells readers that she and her husband Dennis lost their cash crops, but that their home, equipment, pigs and ``a little corn'' survived. When she married a farmer, the author, a widow with a six-year-old son, Jack, had some acquaintance with working the land, but only with the farm crisis in 1986 did she join her husband in the fields. Sowing crops, tending 1500 hogs, learning to drive massive combines and tractors (taking care to wear sunscreen and moisturizers), and participating in a round of community and familial events are happenings depicted in this charming, well-crafted account of a way of life. The memoir introduces an attractive woman who copes with personal tragedies and natural disasters with buoyancy, a sense of humor and a deep commitment to a quintessentially rural lifestyle. Photos. (Oct.)
Library Journal
After she was widowed, Fricke married a Missouri hog farmer. While family farms traditionally draw a distinction between men's and women's work, she assumed the hired man's tasks when he quit. Despite initial reluctance, she learned to drive the giant tractors (Dino and Godzilla) and handle hogs. This unromanticized account of farm life points out the dangers of modern farming (machinery, chemicals) and the high stress caused by long, hard work days and the inability to control the weather. Fricke notes how the beauty of the countryside is counterpoised with noxious smells and loud noises. Her home is heated solely by wood, but she uses satellite home computer connections to track crop prices. While Fricke describes her farm in greater detail than many readers would want, her book is still an excellent firsthand account of late 20th-century farm life. For a broader overview of farming past and present, Nora Janssen Seton's The Road to My Farm ( LJ 8/93) is a better choice.-- Cheryl Childress, Collegiate Sch . , Richmond, Va.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780939149964
  • Publisher: Soho Press, Incorporated
  • Publication date: 10/28/1993
  • Pages: 185
  • Product dimensions: 5.48 (w) x 8.05 (h) x 0.83 (d)

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