A Job for All Seasons: My Small Country Living, Gift inscription by the author

Many home-steaders have plunged in at the deep end and learnt through experience.

But Phyllida Barstow, author of the childhood autobiography My Animals and Other Family, was already steeped in animal husbandry when, as a young woman, she embarked on her own home-steading enterprises.

Here is her lively, informative and witty account of her first-hand experience throughout her lifetime in Gloucestershire, with chickens, dogs, goats, horses, sheep, peacocks, alpacas and even honey bees.

As she points out, small-holding is not a summer idyll but truly a job for all seasons, all hours, all weathers. She also has to deal with fallen stock, pest control, disease outbreaks and slaughter. Her tips include those on animal handling, leading, breeding and delivery. Her wry and practical attitude towards her animals is imbued with respect and often affection for her charges.

This account of the realities of modern home-streading is both entertaining and informative.

Born in 1937, one of five children, Phyllida Barstow spent much of her childhood on a Radnorshire hill farm. She later worked as sub-editor on Argosy and Woman's Journal, and was fiction-buyer for many
Mirror Group magazines. She has had 15 novels published, some historical, under various names, and has been a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, as well as for several country magazines.

Married to author and journalist Duff Hart-Davis in 1961, they have two children and four grand-children. They live on a small farm in Gloucestershire.