Morning Light: Wildflowers, Night Skies, and Other Ordinary Joys of Oregon Country Life - Softcover

Drake, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 087071760X ISBN 13: 9780870717604

Publisher: Oregon State University Press, 2014

Synopsis

In stories about subjects ranging from training herding dogs, constructing a good well, and neighbors who are careless in their target shooting, essayist Barbara Drake ruminates on rural life

About this title

Book Description:

When Barbara Drake and her husband left Portland and moved to a small farm in western Oregon’s Yamhill Valley in the late 80’s, they saw it as a temporary relocation―they would return to the city eventually. But as the couple’s experiences on the farm multiplied―training herding dogs, enlisting a pair of traveling dowsers to help them find a good well, and stargazing in a singular nighttime darkness―they decide to hang on to their rural life as long as possible.

Barbara Drake articulates the lessons she’s learned from her long stint of country living in her new book, Morning Light. Replete with records of native wildflowers, an encounter with an elderly man who lived on her farm eighty years ago, and an old family recipe for wild blackberry pudding, Morning Light is an appreciation and exploration of the landscape of western Oregon, and readers will come to know it better through the book.

As entertaining and instructive as it is personal and reflective, Drake’s writing will resonate with anyone who has experienced a convergence of family history with natural history, considered their place in the historical continuum, or wondered if their lifestyle can be sustained with age. In a world where even “the country” is becoming increasingly citified, Morning Light reminds us why we should care for our rural landscapes―while we still can.

About the Author:

Barbara Drake was born in Kansas in 1939, moved to Oregon in 1941, grew up in Coos Bay on the Oregon Coast, and earned BA and MFA degrees from the University of Oregon. After teaching at Michigan State University, she returned to Oregon in 1983 to develop the new creative writing major at Linfield College, where she taught until retiring as Professor Emerita in 2007.  Drake has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and a widely used college textbook, Writing Poetry. Her book Peace at Heart: An Oregon Country Life was an Oregon Book Award finalist in 1999.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oregon State University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 087071760X
• ISBN 13: 9780870717604
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200