From the moment I met him at a fancy author dinner and we bonded over the fact that we had both been wrassling sheep (for agricultural – not entertainment – reasons) less that 24 hours previous, I have felt an affinity for Gene Logsdon. Just the other night in response to a question about raising chickens and pigs I recommended his All Flesh is Grass, which I re-read every year. And the fact that we are actually going to be able to feed our chickens from our own fields over the coming winter is a direct result of many sessions spent dog-earing Gene’s Small-Scale Grain Raising.
At this point, I think of Gene as a friend, although I would never treat him with the informality of a “pal,” because where I come from, one always reserves a measure of deference for wise elders.
When I recommend Gene’s books, I often refer to his plainspoken outspokenness…two qualities I tend to admire because neither comes naturally to me. Gene tends to just lay it right out there. Which brings us to the whole point of this post.
Gene has a new book out. It’s doing well. Getting good reviews, and the interviewers are calling. But no one seems to want to mention the actual title of the book…