This is a very special book. I don't remember being as affected by a book in a long time. This collection of reflective essays of the author’s experience growing up on a Minnesota farm in the 1960s and 1970s is framed by the end of the farm following the loss of the author's father. There's nothing flashy; no compelling plot to keep the pages turning, yet I read the book with a sort of awe and reverence, even a prickle on my skin. Kent Meyers writes as beautifully and movingly of the small detail: the tall grasses and miniature ecosystems of the dredge ditch, or the lowly cocklebur, against which soybean farmers labor all summer; as the eternal: the stories and rhythms that compel humans who live their lives under the stars, environmental stewardship juxtaposed with harsh farming economics, both considered against the Catholic taxonomies of sin, the aura that surrounds a badger. I found myself tearing bits of paper and marking particularly moving or profound or beautiful paragraphs or pages to return to and share aloud with my husband, my friends, with anyone, really. For an even more eloquent, and deeply personal take on the power and brilliance of this book, please see the review under mine written by TimBazzett. This is definitely a favorite, favorite read of 2011. ( )

Dear Kent,
I need to thank you - for writing The Witness of Combines. I know it's been a dozen years or so since you published it, but I've only just now 'discovered' it. It's such a deeply personal work, filled with wisdom, humor and an obvious love of family.
The details provided about the everyday life on a family farm back in the sixties and seventies are so valuable today, since those decades were really nearly the end of family farms as we knew them. Your anecdotes about chickens and how they progress so rapidly from those adorable and animate little yellow puff balls to pullets and chickens who produce not just eggs, but all that mess in the coop, which has to be cleaned periodically, and the stink and ammonia-like fumes that go right to your lungs as you scrape off the roosts, gagging, coughing and quietly cursing. I remembered it all, reading your memories, right up to the killing, plucking, cleaning and eating, when, as you said, no matter how many of those nasty fowl made up a big family meal, it was never 'chickens' we ate, but simply 'chicken.' Personally, after having such an intimate acquaintance with those filthy fowl, I remained for years a bit squeamish about eating them, preferring Mom's biscuits and gravy to the actual meat itself. Now I like chicken, but I'm fifty years removed the chicken coop cleaning by now.
I found it especially meaningful how you managed to make pulling weeds into an uplifting experience, albeit years later, equating the cockleburs with the constellations and connecting it all to celestial bodies and studying the skies. Sounds unlikely, I know, but it works wonderfully. Almost made me want to learn more about the stars, to go along with all those myths and legends I studied in college and beyond - and all those weeds I once hoed so resentfully in our acres of cucumbers, or, as my brothers and I called it all, the "pickle patch."
And the sibling tensions expressed in "Stuck" are pitch perfect, as are the small adventures and joys of same described in "Night Grove" and "How Joel and I Almost Became Mountain Men." All of which made me chuckle in rueful recognition.
I think, however, what will remain with me the longest from this collection is the way you remember your parents, particularly your father, who you knew for such a cruelly short time. He lives on in the values he instilled in you, and he gave you the strength to keep things going on the farm for a short time and then to make a good life for yourself. And if you are anything like me, I'll bet you still 'talk' with your dad nearly every day. Fathers. Even when they seem distant or remote, they matter - are so important. This book is such a wonderful tribute to your dad, and also to your mother.
Although I say I can relate to much of what you've written in The Witness of Combines, my own childhood farming experiences were on a much smaller scale, helping out on my grandfather's 'hobby farm' located adjacent to our home, part of which was even inside the city limits of our small town. But I still remember those damn chickens, and all those sweltering days spent planting, hoeing, weeding and then repeatedly picking all those damn pickles. And I also remember the satisfaction I felt after long days of haying with my brothers and Grandpa, and how we'd all pile into the car after dark and head out to a nearby lake to swim and wash away the sweat, dirt and chaff. It's all of a piece now, those memories - the misery and the joys. But like you, the advice and counsel and example of my dad and grandfather have stuck with me. Work first; then you can play.
God, I loved this book! I savored it. I found myself, marking my place with a finger, closing it and stroking the glossy cover with my thumb and fingers, trying perhaps to 'feel' more physically the things I was reading - and remembering. I didn't want it to end.
But all good books do end. I hope I will find time to return to this one on occasion. In the meantime I will shelve it with some other similar books which I treasure. Here's a short list of a few of them -

Eighty Acres: Elegy for a Family Farm, by Ronald Jager
Pulling Down the Barn, by Anne-Marie Oomen
From the Land and Back, by Curtis Stadtfeld
The Last Farmer, by Howard Kohn.

These are all farm memoirs from Michigan, and to these I'll boldly add my own, Reed City Boy, although I fear it doesn't really compare. Then there are these other country classics -

We Have All Gone Away, by Curtis Harnack (Iowa)
The Portable Prairie, by M.J. Andersen (South Dakota)
The Horizontal World, by Debra Marquart (North Dakota)
How It Looks Going Back, by Doris Knowles Pulis (Montana)

All of these books are memoirs. I also have a couple of fictional favorites in Mildred Walker's Winter Wheat and Don Kurtz's South of the Big Four.

Of course there are many more, Kent, but I just wanted you to know The Witness of Combines will be in good company here on my shelves. Once again, thank you for writing it. Your father would be so proud. No, not 'would be' - he is.
All the best,
Tim Bazzett ( )

If you grew up on a farm or in a farming community, Meyers anecdotes about his early life will spark memories of your own. Daily chores, retrieving chicken from the orchard after dusk, playing basketball in the hay loft, and mom canning enough vegetables and fruits for a large family are just some of the chapters. Any fan of Kent Meyers books will also find his real life experiences reflected in his novels. Wonderfully reminiscent of a time gone by. ( )