From Library Journal
When Diane Josephy met Idaho state senator and rancher John Peavey in 1980, she hardly suspected that her urban existence was about to end and that she would find herself married to this third-generation rancher and living in blissful isolation at the end of a 24-mile dirt road. This is a collection of short essays revealing humorous, heartwarming, and heartbreaking moments from her life on Flat Top Sheep Ranch. Originally read on Idaho Public Radio, the essays reveal the heart of Western rural culture rodeos, county fairs, and sheep shearing, as well as the struggle of family farms to survive unpredictable weather, unfavorable U.S. farm policy, encroaching development, and globalization. Peavey writes of her passion for the land in all its beauty and complexity, which is the common ground between her rancher and environmentalist sides. Her compelling writing evokes the smell of sagebrush, the sweltering heat of a cattle drive on a 100-degree day, and the pleasant melancholy of a winter landscape. Highly recommended for all public libraries and for academic libraries with Western or nature-writing collections. Maureen J. Delaney-Lehman, Lake Superior State Univ., Sault Ste. Marie, MI Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
"My home is the vast, open landscape of south-central Idaho, at once a sanctuary, a source of strength, and a heartache," writes Diane Josephy Peavey in the introduction to Bitterbrush Country. Her words echo the paradox that many westerners feel about life in the West, the most eagerly developed landscape in America. But in place of nostalgia, polemic, or exposé as a response to this voraciousness, Peavey describes from ground level what it's like to be a rancher and an environmentalist, to love a place still shaped by generational communities and rolling hills. In a mosaic of essays, Peavey shares both her visceral joys in the land and her fears about losing a rural western way of life. From delighting in the arrival of blooming bitterbrush and cooking "gormay" on a sheep run, to mourning the loss of neighbors unable to hold on to family farms and ranches, Peavey tells a deeply personal story of her chosen home.

From the Publisher
One woman's story of finding home in the American West and her struggle to preserve it.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When author Diane Josephy Peavey first arrived in south-central Idaho twenty years ago, she did not know it was possible to become as connected to a place as she is now, nor, she claims, did she understand the "meaning of love, of home, of commitment. That would come to me here, 24 dirt-road miles from town." Story by story, readers will pass through the seasons of a ranching life, discovering the power of a landscape that inspires passion in so many.

SYNOPSIS

One woman's story of finding home in the American West and her struggle to preserve it.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal