Following a thought from Tara Farms and found myself another Aussie farmer, but this time in Western Australia. TJ was in the middle of fighting fires when I clicked through. I stayed because I’m looking for more Australian farmers, and I wanted to support him, fires can be devastating to a farmer. In wandering through his YouTube I noticed he’d written a book. All of a sudden I found I’d ordered it, I’m sure there was no conscious decision on my part.
I’m going to get the negative stuff out of the way. There’s typos throughout, he has problems with apostrophes (although, going by my thinking today I’m not sure I should be judging this last point), and there are issues with typesetting. Proofreading to get rid of those pesky typos is a skill in and of itself, often writers don’t have that skill and it shows, not just in this book but in so many others. Typesetting is another skill, it’s not intuitive. I’ve learned some typesetting, but I’d still prefer to leave this up to an expert. I’m sure Kowald was trying to produce this book as cheaply as possible, but there are times you need to get an expert in. I’m sure if I was to try farming I’d have issues.
Having said all of that I finished the book. I’ve had books with fewer issues that I’ve not finished. Including one book that I only made it to page 11 before passing it onto a less judgemental friend. In order for me to push through there had to be something special about it. And that something special leads me to wanting more, I’d be really happy with a sequel…or multiple sequels.
The other thing I’d be really happy about is to have this book made into a series. Probably animated, but stop-motion would also work. What Kowald has done that kept me reading is to anthropomorphise the farm machinery and have them be self-aware and be able to help the farmer properly. When things go very wrong the vehicles from both farms work together to keep everyone safe. I loved the vehicles and I particularly loved Kubota. If there was to be a series I’d be pushing for merchandise to go with it. I’d probably want earrings, and a keep cup or a water bottle with Kubota on the outside. I can imagine people of the target demographic wanting all the plushies. And can you imagine little plushie earrings of each of the farm vehicles??? Good thing you can’t hear me screaming…waaaaannnt.
Although, the merchandise could very well be done even without a TV or YouTube series. But I’m ignoring that because I’d watch every episode multiple times. Do you hear that TV producers? This book would do well as a series.
I just want to have a quick look at some of the things that made me smile, or sit up and take notice.
Kowald often takes a known phrase such as ‘spill the beans’ and puts a farmer’s spin on it. In this case he changed it to ‘spill the lupins’. This amused me because lupins are in the bean family. It’s something that a farmer or a foodie would pick up on, but a city person might not. I’m neither a farmer nor a foodie, but slightly edumacated about food, I’ve been obsessed with cooking shows since the 1970s.
Sometimes he’ll take a phrase and condense it to a word. In Australia the phrase is ‘see you later’. This has often morphed to become ‘see ya’. Kowald takes it one step further and it becomes ‘cya’. It might be something that happens in his generation, or a farmer thing. It just made me smile.
I really liked the explanation Kowald popped in. Some of the vehicles are talking about their day. Landy (a Landrover) suggests (Gator) has been gaslit by a vehicle on another farm. Gator has no idea what gaslighting is so Landy explains. It’s really good to see an explanation of this behaviour in a book. Bearing in mind this book is probably aimed at pre-teens makes me want to pass it on to people in that age group.
The vehicles spend a bit of time catching up with each other, debriefing and generally behaving like friends. It’s lovely to see normal friend behavour in farm vehicles. Essentially, normalising behaviour that help people get through their lives.
Despite the problems I mentioned I loved this book. I would consider reading it again, but I’ll also be buying and reading any sequels Kowald finds the time to write. I will continue to watch him on YouTube, liking many of his videos and commenting where I feel appropriate.