Once Upon a Farm: Lessons on Growing Love, Life, and Hope on a New Frontier

Sometimes, it’s not only what we plant but where we’re planted. As opposed to homesteading, Once Upon a Farm is a book on “lifesteading” as New York Times bestselling author Rory Feek learns to cultivate faith, love, and fatherhood on a small farm, while doing everything but farming.

With frequent stories of his and Joey’s years together, and how those guide his life today, Rory unpacks just what it means to be open to new experiences. Much like Jesus’ biblical parable, when we scatter our seeds, some will grow in the fertile land and warm sun. Rory contends that it’s the same way with our dreams, but we must always pay attention to what our story is teaching us.

It’s long been said that timing is everything, and it is, unless you haven’t done the work to be prepared. What does it mean to cultivate life, to be open to new directions, to invest in another person as a way of connecting with God? Through his wealth of stories and vulnerable spirit, Rory opens up on those struggles in his own life and, in the process, shows the way for us all.

“This isn’t a how-to book, it’s more of a how we or more accurately how He (God) planted us on a few acres of land and grew something bigger than Joey or I could have ever imagined.”

It’s an ongoing story of a new frontier, all woven into a new season of learning to grow a new life and love in the land that his wife loved so much.

Rory Feek is a true renaissance man, known as one of Nashville’s premiere songwriters, entrepreneurs, and out-of-the-box thinkers. He is a world-class storyteller, crossing all creative mediums, from music and film to books and digital media, and is the New York Times bestselling author of This Life I Live and author of Once Upon a Farm and The Cow Said Neigh. As a blogger, Rory shares his heart and story with the world through roryfeek.com and has more than 2 million Facebook followers. As a songwriter, Rory has written multiple number-one songs. As an artist, he is half of the Grammy-winning country music duo Joey+Rory. As a filmmaker, Rory wrote and filmed the touching documentary To Joey, with Love and directed the feature-length love story Finding Josephine. Rory has appeared on The Rachael Ray Show, CBS Sunday Morning, and The Today Show. As a storyteller, Rory has a new role as Chief Creative Officer of the television network RFD-TV, where he will continue to share not only his own story with the world but also the incredible stories of many others. RFD-TV originally aired the television variety show The Joey+Rory Show and will also air Rory’s most recent television series, This Life I Live. Rory and his youngest daughter, Indiana, live an hour south of Nashville in an 1870s farmhouse, where she goes to school in a one-room schoolhouse built for their community.