It’s a fourth publication from local author Billi Jean Miller as she deepens her exploration of life on the farm.
This time Miller serves up Farm Kids: Stories from Our Lives. The Kitscoty-based writer pens vignettes from the stories of centenarians like Vernon Marlatt, who still drives his car to the golf course to hit a round with his buddies. She rounds that off with insights from present-day kids like six-year old Max Merrild from Paradise Valley.
Another aspect of her writing is that she captures farm life from across Canada including Nova Scotia.
“I’ve made a lot of contacts with farmers through the process of my farmwives books. I went to some of them and connected with them about their kids and said “Would you like to put your kid in a book now.” And yes I think it’s really nice to do that and you capture different kinds of farms as well.”
Miller in a quest to put the spotlight on farm life is sharing the stories from the ranch to the grocery store and hopefully reaching the dining tables of people who may be unaware of what it really takes to produce food.
She says one of her posts on social media gained so much traction that it prompted a chapter in her book dealing with the one thing that farmers want non-farmers to know about agriculture.
“Farmers are not poisoning you through your food. They are making a conscious decision to live this life. It’s not the only thing they know how to do. They love and they are attached to the land that they farm. They are long time family run businesses – not factory farms. There are so many misnomers you hear out there – people talking about farming and where your food comes from and food production. For these people, it was so important for them to say, “We eat the food that we grow too.””
Miller says she is using her platform to bridge that urban-rural divide and for people to better understand how food is produced.
Farm Kids: Stories from Our Lives is available at Lloydminster Co-operative Marketplace,
Abby Road Flowers as well as online and via Miller’s website.