A personal memoir on motherhood, marriage and living on a farm.
It was a fascinating read about British farming.
But overall the book spoke to me about the behind the scenes that create a home - cooking and making meals, the love, care, affection and motherhood.
They are the things that matter and can’t be measured.
Loved the author’s openness about the challenges and it’s a call to arms to be better stewards of our local rural area and to think about where our food comes from, to support local growers and farms.
To that end the author shared with us her tried and tested tasty family recipes.
It made very nostalgic to hark back to a simpler less rushed life
Thank you @theshepherdswife @faberbooks & @netgalley for an enjoyable read and the eARC

As a female, mum who is interested in farming I was immediately drawn to this book when I saw it on NetGalley. I found it super interesting and it was great to read a book about farming from a femal perspective.

I love this biography, loved the anedoctes and the recipes. there're moments from the past and the present, there's the smell of the earth after the rain and a good storytelling.
It made me wish I was there, loved it
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A beautifully honest and direct glimpse into life on the land in the 21st century, as a woman, mother, and daughter. Never shying from how the farming life demands everything you’ve got to give and more, nor from the far too often belittled joy, reward and worth that a life centred on deeply caring for those around you can bring. Strongly and unapologetically domestic in its scope, I hope this will be one of those books that those who’ve read it will pass on to all those around them with the words ‘you HAVE to read this, she just so gets what it’s really like’.

Helen Rebanks writes a fascinating and authentic memoir of her life as a farmer's wife on a Lake District farm, whilst looking back over her life, her childhood growing up on a farm, her intention to never live on a farm again upon leaving home, but life had other plans. Readers may be familiar with James Rebanks, Helen's husband, and we get a glimpse of who he is and their life through Helen'eyes. In the present, she paints a picture of a mad and chaotic life, she has 4 children, Molly, Bea, Isaac and Tom. Then there are the 6 sheepdogs, 2 ponies, 20 chickens, 500 sheep and 50 cattle, the farm year has a rhythm to it, feeding the sheep and cattle in the barns in the winter, lambing and calving in spring, silage making, hay time in summer, and sales in autumn. From her grandparents, parents, through to the present we see that farming has undergone great changes and transformation.

Food plays a big part in Helen's life, and her love of cooking is illustrated by the many recipes that intersperse the memoir, which I am sure will be appreciated by many readers. As is true for so many of us, Helen's multigenerational family relationships contain the kind of conflicts that will feel familiar, she only really learns about her mother's personal history, beginning to understand her better only later on as an adult. We are privy to the almost instant connection Helen feels for James, a farmer's son, the pair living together in Oxford, with Helen working a variety of jobs so that she is able to make a financial contribution, with James proposing in a rose garden in Chile. Their relationships faces the normal ups and downs of being a couple and their marriage, incorporating conflicting ideas and tensions over their futures, covering Helen's determination to be there for her children, the exhaustion of being a mother, and the upsetting judgements others make over her being a mother of 4 children.

I personally would not want to be Helen, and I certainly would not have made many of her decisions, but thankfully we are all different, and I found it interesting to read about who she is, how she got to where she is, and what comprises everyday life for her. After all the upheavals of her life, Helen has reached a point where she and James are comfortable with who and where they are, reaping the benefits of understanding( each other better over time, having come through challenges, such as coping with extreme weather (the beast from the east) and much more. As the memoir comes to a close, Helen reflects on her efforts to change and adapt, looking at how our choices as consumers affect farming, and the state of farming and animal welfare. I think this is a memoir that will appeal to a wide range of readers, from those interested in life on a farm to those drawn to learn more about Helen herself and the path her life has taken. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I enjoyed the parts of this book that were full of recipes and arming lore but I did find this to be more akin to the Yorkshire Shepherdess's books than actually about being a farmer's wife - especially when James Rebanks with all of his initiatives and ideas is the farmer in question.

I really enjoyed this memoir and was quite captivated by the simple yet engaging prose. It's written in such a thoughtful and meaningful way, often with sentences that encapsulate a lot about life and nature. I obviously came to it through my interest in James Rebanks - it was quite fun learning their history too! Nice recipes.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
I have literally just finished it and have dived straight in to write my feedback. I loved this book....parts were a bit jumbled on my Kindle version but that just added to the chaos going on at the farm with a growing family. It was a pleasant ramble through Helen's trials and tribulations and perhaps I would have liked more rounded events. The Beast from the East was very descriptive as it arrived .......but there was no 'what happened after it had left'. What was the wreckage this event left behind. Some tales just stopped dead. Nevertheless, I totally recommend this to other readers who want a warts and all tale of farming life.

I've devoured both books by James Rebanks, husband to Helen Rebanks. So I was mightily curious to read 'The Farmer's Wife'.

It turns out to be a simple yet beautifully told memoir; the literary equivalent of an open window with the sun shining in and a vase of flowers from the garden on the sill. Different themes are woven together - growing up in a rural area, navigating the highs and lows of love, the anxiety of not wanting to conform, or the anxiety of wanting what you feel judged for wanting (in the author's case, becoming a mother to many children).

The most unexpected element of the book for me was the recipes interspersing the narrative. In all honesty, I don't think I'll make any of them (almost-vegetarian who only eats the occasional bit of wild venison here!) but they are a rather lovely and sensuous touch.

Rebanks has not gone on great adventures or suffered terrible trauma in her life, but her story is compelling all the same; the sense of her life rises from the pages, and I'm glad to have read her.

The Farmer's Wife : My Life in Days by Helen Rebanks

A great book which is also peppered with recipes , some of which I will definitely use.
I very much enjoyed Helen's writing style and details of her childhood , those people that were important to her as a child and of course her adult life and becoming a mother , and a farmer alongside her husband James whos books I have also enjoyed.
I also live in Cumbria and enjoy reading books about families who go a great way in protecting this beautiful county and the precious wildlife in it.