A fellow artist and reader of this blog recommended this to me and I recommended back to her A Shepherd’s Life, which I read after visiting northern England with all of its sheep. I liked that one better, but this book about shepherding has the advantage of being in my own country (Vermont) and being about the experience of a woman.
This lyrical, but grounded, literary nonfiction about shepherding is about being in relation to the land, but also to a daughter and a mother. It is about stewardship, how rare that is, and how it has its challenges in the modern world. Her feelings as an empty nester, and daughter of a mother with dementia, were all too familiar to me, and rang true. Her love of the land and her sheep were very evident too.
I learned about coyotes, which I found fascinating, and slaughtering, which I did not. She meets some indigenous shepherds, so that was an unexpected detour. One is struck that her way of life is disappearing fast, and is being written down before it vanishes altogether.
The Salt Stones is beautifully written, and I found it very calming to read (I listened to it on audio). You might want to spend some time with this author and her way of life too. I give it four stars.
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