Fun on the Farm Too

Fun on the Farm Too
Compiled and edited by Deana J. Driver
Published by DriverWorks Ink
Review by Michelle Shaw
$15.95 ISBN 978192757037-1

If you loved Fun on the Farm: True Tales of Farm Life, then you’re in for a treat. The sequel Fun on the Farm Too is packed with 40 more hilarious and memorable stories and poems about life on a farm on the Canadian prairies.

Once again there are stories about strange happenings in outhouses, stubborn sheep, terrifying turkeys, alarming stories of pigs and chickens and the inevitable antics that arise from growing up on a farm.

Theodore Mikolayenko tells the story of how he decided to become a self-appointed goose flight coordinator, we find out what made mild-mannered Agnes finally blow her cool, and we discover the recipe for perfect mud pies (hint, it involves a fresh egg!). There will also be a trip down memory lane for many readers with June Hudy’s story about party lines (a forerunner of social media for those who are too young to remember this staple of rural life) which allowed the entire community to keep up to date on their neighbors’ personal lives.

I particularly loved Carrie Ann Schemenauer’s hilarious poem, “Nine Lives of a Farmer”, which was written about her father, Eugene. As she puts it, “he never was big on safety”.

Twenty-two Prairie writers are represented in the book including such well-known names as Marion Mutala and Ed Olfert.

The original anthology of 48 short stories and poems was published in 2016 as a tribute to the late Al Driver, co-publisher of DriverWorks Ink, whose idea it was to share fun stories of farm life. The book’s editor Deana Driver says that readers’ responses to that book prompted this collection of more “hilarious farm antics”.

A donation from the sale of the book will be made to The Lung Association of Saskatchewan.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM