It All Began with Daisy: 2 - Hardcover

Jones, Sonia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525245405 ISBN 13: 9780525245407

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1987

Synopsis

The author recounts how she and her husband decided to leave New York for a farm in Nova Scotia and inadvertently became proprietors of a yogurt business

About this title

About the Author

Sonia Harrison Jones was born and raised in London, England, the daughter of Kay Harrison (a founding executive and former managing director of Technicolor Films) and Marion Belle Pond (daughter of Percy Pond, the photographer who documented the life and culture of Alaska from the 1880's to 1944). She graduated from the Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, Connecticut, received an M.A. in Spanish from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Romance Languages from Harvard University. In 1970 she married Gordon F. Jones, an entrepreneur who owned a management consulting firm in New York City. The couple had two daughters (Valerie Anne, born in 1971, and Victoria Fay, born in 1974). They moved to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, in 1972 where Sonia became Chairperson of the Department of Spanish at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She taught there for twenty years, publishing several academic books and numerous articles. In 1976 she started a dairy manufacturing company called Peninsula Farm Ltd. which was incorporated in 1979 (she is now the chief executive officer and her husband is the chief operating officer). Since retiring from Dalhousie she has published many humorous pieces in a variety of magazines, including The Reader's Digest, The Catholic Digest, and The Banner. She is now the grandmother of Harrison Benjamin Jager, son of Victoria and Chad Jager of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Valerie is currently a third-year medical student at Columbia University in New York, where she has yet to hear the mooing of a cow.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

As the winter drew on we began to notice that the plank leading up the half-frozen manure pile was getting steeper by the day. Being from New York we were used to shoveling it, but here we were shoveling the real thing.

"I'll tell you something," said Gordon as he came slipping and sliding back into the barn with his empty wheelbarrow. "Our manure pile has become the highest point in Lunenburg County. Have you ever noticed the view from up there? On a clear day you can see forty miles in every direction."

"Get away," I said, taking a swipe at him with my muck brush.

"No, I'm serious," he insisted, leaning on his shovel and smiling. "Just think about it for a minute. We've been working in this barn almost all winter, right? Okay, so did you know that the average cow produces her own weight in manure every three weeks? No, I'm not kidding. I read it in The Dairy Breeder. So figure it out. We have eleven critters and we've been working about, what, about twelve weeks, right? So that's forty-four times the weight of a cow, which is roughly half a ton, let's say. So you're looking at a twenty-two-ton manure pile out there!"

"No wonder we have calluses," I said, peering out at the manure pile with a growing feeling of accomplishment. "And to think we did it all one shovelful at a time!"

But a few moments later my self-congratulatory mood began to evaporate. My father would have turned over in his grave, I thought, if he had known I'd end up using my expensive education to create a twenty-two-ton pile of manure.

"Reach for the stars, my darling daughter," he used to intone in his deep, stentorian voice. "You have only one life to live, so you must make every moment count." He would enunciate his words in a perfect British accent so that each phrase seemed weighty with significance. "The world is an unsubstantial sort of place, a place of vanity and fleeting desire. You can lose everything you own in the blink of an eye. But there is one thing they will never be able to take away from you, and that is your brain. Make your life an intellectual challenge, and let your riches be those of the heart and mind."

Gordon, however, was undaunted by the implications of a life dedicated in large part to the creation of an impressive mountain of dung. "Nobody is too good to shovel shit," he declared with finality. "It'll make you a better teacher, and a better scholar, too. It'll give you perspective. Besides, success isn't just a question of brains and tenacity. It has a lot to do with being willing to tackle the dirty work, too. So let's just keep loading it up."

As I leaned my weight into my shovel I had visions of our manure pile expanding relentlessly, one plop at a time, until it reached my father's ever-beckoning stars.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0525245405
• ISBN 13: 9780525245407
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 237