Obey the Flower

In 2005 Kimerer LaMothe moved with her family to a dilapidated dairy farm in upstate New York. She was living her dream - eager to dance and write surrounded by the beauty of the natural world. Her children decided they wanted to be farmers. With ample doses of honesty, wisdom, and wonder, Kimerer chronicles her adventures in creative living with her life partner, their four then five children, and a barnyard of animals.

In a series of essays spanning twelve years, Kimerer asks: Why milk a cow? Is nature for or against us? Must we feel pain? Can you teach creativity? Why isn't good sex easy? Is dance a vital art? How do you parent warring siblings? Is the Earth sacred? Above all, how should we live?

The book is such a gift. It will be a touchstone for many who are on a quest for something they can't yet name... There is something palpably different in Kimerer's musings, something about being tethered to place and unhampered by convention. There's an innocence to the experiment that didn't linger long, but it never disappeared. It kept returning to visit.  Kimerer's reflections are an invitation to probe both the unanticipated edges of one's soul and the simplicity of awe waiting just beyond the door stoop. - Philip Ackerman-Leist, Author of Up Tunket Road and Rebuilding the Foodshed