Showing results by author "Catherine Friend" in All Categories

When rare book librarian Emma Boyd searches for a pirate's long-lost treasure map, she learns the hard way that pirates still exist in today's world - and some modern pirates steal maps, others steal hearts. The treasure map she seeks belonged to the Caribbean pirate Thomasina Farris, who disappeared in 1715 without a trace. Did Captain Tommy steal an entire treasure from a Spanish galleon and escape? Did she die by another pirate's sword?

Farms have fences. People have boundaries. Mine began crumbling the day I knelt behind a male sheep, reached between his legs, and squeezed his testicles. This took place one blustery November day when I joined other shepherd-wannabes for a class on the basics of raising sheep. I was there with my partner Melissa, the woman I'd lived with for 12 years, because we were going to start a farm.

What do you do when you love your farm...but it doesn’t love you? After 15 years of farming, Catherine Friend is tired. After all, while shepherding is one of the oldest professions, it’s not getting any easier. The number of sheep in America has fallen by 90 percent in the last 90 years. But just as Catherine thinks it’s time to hang up her shepherd’s crook, she discovers that sheep might be too valuable to give up. What ensues is a funny, thoughtful romp through the history of our woolly friends, why small farms are important, and how each one of us - and the planet - would benefit from being very sheepish, indeed.