The Backyard Parables
Lessons on Gardening, and Life
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Narrated by:
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Margaret Roach
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By:
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Margaret Roach
About this listen
Margaret Roach has been harvesting 30 years of backyard parables - deceptively simple, instructive stories from a life spent digging ever deeper - and has distilled them in this memoir along with her best tips for garden making, discouraging all manner of animal and insect opponents, at-home pickling, and more. After ruminating on the bigger picture in her memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There, Margaret Roach has returned to the garden, insisting as ever that we must garden with both our head and heart, or as she expresses it, with "horticultural how-to and woo-woo."
InThe Backyard Parables, Roach uses her fundamental understanding of the natural world, philosophy, and life to explore the ways that gardening saved and instructed her, and meditates on the science and spirituality of nature, reminding her listeners and herself to keep on digging.
©2013 Margaret Roach (P)2013 Gildan Media LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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This is an unexpected wonder. The quiet virtues of the snail reflect the quiet voyage of the author.
- By Frances on 08-03-15
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Seedfolks
- By: Paul Fleischman
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Thirteen lives. One garden. Set in Cleveland, Newbery-Award-winning author Paul Fleischman's poignant book is a large lesson in connectedness and community for all. When a derelict vacant lot is gradually transformed into a community garden in inner city Cleveland, the people of this community find their differences are less apparent and their isolation dissolved. Performed by thirteen multicuturally and age-authentic voices, this audiobook is designed for listeners of all ages.
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Excellent to listen
- By Rina on 10-12-09
By: Paul Fleischman
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Farm City
- The Education of an Urban Farmer
- By: Novella Carpenter
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Novella Carpenter loves cities - the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can't shake the fact that she is the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating her parents' disastrous mistakes, yet drawn to the idea of backyard self-sufficiency, Carpenter decided that it might be possible to have it both ways.
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Hmmm.
- By THoward on 09-30-09
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A Hunter's Fireside Book
- Tales of Dogs, Ducks, Birds, & Guns
- By: Gene Hill
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The legendary American outdoor writer’s finest collection. For decades, Gene Hill’s articles and books have captured the spirit of the outdoors in a way that inspires and entertains millions of readers. A Hunter’s Fireside Book captures the essence of the life of a sportsman and explores the full spectrum of the hunter’s experience: sunrises in the duck blind, an unforgettable hunter’s moon, the camaraderie of men who know the pleasures of being wet and cold and a little bit lost.
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Beyond acquiring meat, this is why we go afield
- By Ray C on 02-28-20
By: Gene Hill
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The Armchair Birder
- Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds
- By: John Yow
- Narrated by: Kevin Young
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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While birding literature is filled with tales of expert observers spotting rare species in exotic locales, John Yow reminds us that the most fascinating birds can be the ones perched right outside our windows. In thirty-five engaging and sometimes irreverent vignettes, Yow reveals the fascinating lives of the birds we see nearly every day. Following the seasons, he covers forty-two species, discussing the improbable, unusual, and comical aspects of his subjects' lives.
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If You Love Birds . . . Grab It!
- By Kathy in CA on 02-23-17
By: John Yow
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Fruitless Fall
- The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis
- By: Rowan Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Rowell Gormon
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Many people will remember that Rachel Carson predicted a silent spring, but she also warned of a fruitless fall, a time with no pollination and no fruit. The fruitless fall nearly became a reality when, in 2007, beekeepers watched 30 billion bees mysteriously die. And they continue to disappear. The remaining pollinators, essential to the cultivation of a third of American crops, are now trucked across the country and flown around the world, pushing them ever closer to collapse.
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Compulsory Reading - Share with Everyone!
- By Charles Koenen on 04-12-20
By: Rowan Jacobsen
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Beekeeping for Beginners
- How to Raise Your First Bee Colonies
- By: Amber Bradshaw
- Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg
- Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Easy beekeeping for new-bees. Wouldn’t it be great to raise your own bees, have a fresh supply of honey, and bring thousands of healthy pollinators into your yard? Beekeeping for Beginners is a simple, step-by-step guide that helps you learn the fundamentals of modern beekeeping. You (and your bees) will be buzzing with delight. From picking the right hive and bringing your bees home to surviving winter and collecting honey, experienced beekeeper Amber Bradshaw takes you on an easy-to-follow journey through your first year of beekeeping and beyond.
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Too much fluff.
- By Brandon Horvat on 05-02-21
By: Amber Bradshaw
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Song of Increase
- Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees for Kinder Beekeeping and a Better World
- By: Jacqueline Freeman
- Narrated by: Jacqueline Freeman, Robin Wise
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The most joyful emanation produced by a colony of bees is known as the "song of increase" - declaring that the hive is flourishing and the bees are happy in its abundance. Song of Increase takes us inside the world of the honeybee to glean the wisdom of these fascinating creatures with whom humanity has shared a sacred bond for millennia. Within these minutes is a bee-centric approach to living with honeybees, rather than advice for simply maximizing the products they provide.
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Couldn't Get Past the First Few Chapters
- By Stephen Hopper on 06-10-17
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The Good Good Pig
- The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood
- By: Sy Montgomery
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always felt more comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladly opened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away from nourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inkling that this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not only survive but flourish.
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Uplifting memoir of a pig + autobiography
- By Diana on 04-04-19
By: Sy Montgomery
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Uncultivated
- Wild Apples, Real Cider, and the Complicated Art of Making a Living
- By: Andy Brennan
- Narrated by: Brett Barry
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the advent of conventional farming methods - which have focused on constant growth, human intervention, and genetic homogeneity - the apple had already grown to become the ubiquitous all-American symbol it is today. Known for their hardiness, ability to adapt to new environments, natural diversity, and plentiful bounty, wildly grown apples were once known as “America’s fruit” throughout the trading world.
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Really good narrator
- By Landon & Sarah on 03-28-24
By: Andy Brennan
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How to Read Nature
- An Expert's Guide to Discovering the Outdoors You've Never Noticed
- By: Tristan Gooley
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 3 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Nobody wakes up in the morning and decides to shut down their senses and stumble through each day in an oblivious bubble, and yet some people end up having much richer experiences than others. In this guidebook, natural navigator Tristan Gooley strives to reawaken our senses to help us understand and deepen our personal experience of nature. His message is to connect - however we can and to whatever draws us in.
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A fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees
- By Mark A Bleakley on 08-07-18
By: Tristan Gooley
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A Naturalist at Large
- The Best Essays of Bernd Heinrich
- By: Bernd Heinrich
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the finest scientists and writers of our time comes an engaging record of a life spent in close observation of the natural world, one that has yielded marvelous, mind-altering insight and discoveries. In essays that span several decades, Bernd Heinrich finds himself at his beloved camp in Maine, plays host to annoying visitors from Europe (the cluster fly) and more helpful guests from Asia (ladybugs), and unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of elephants in Botswana bruising mopane trees.
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Listen and See the World Anew!
- By Thoughtful Learner on 06-03-18
By: Bernd Heinrich
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Little Heathens
- Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression
- By: Mildred Armstrong Kalish
- Narrated by: Ruth Ann Phimister
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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As foreclosure fragments her family, five-year-old Mildred and her three siblings find refuge with her grandparents enjoying a modest retirement. When the "little heathens" flush the seniors and their child-rearing skills out of retirement, the grandparents deploy tough but loving bedtime schedules, Bible and prayer routines, and plenty of character-building chores. Having no electricity or indoor plumbing and with little heat or money on the farm, Mildred learns to find joy in the priceless blessings of life.
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Makes you appreciate today's living
- By Susan on 03-11-11
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What listeners say about The Backyard Parables
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-11-13
Great Writing Distracting Reading
I enjoyed this book, perhaps more than the rating might suggest. But then again I am pliable and tolerant in the face of good writing. Let's get the negatives out of the way. The most obvious is the reading. The author's reading is very monotoned and at times too fast. This may be a deal breaker for some, and though I usually do not put too much emphasis on this category, I have to say, it was difficult at first. But it got better. I'm not sure if this had to do with my own habituation or if she improved over time. By the end it was an aspect of the personality of the book and I was more than used to it.
Also this book was much more memoir than parable. In fact the attempt to make it parable seemed a bit strained. Perhaps it is just me, but I expect a parable to be rather directly moralizing, or, maybe, I am just lazy and expected her to connect the dots more literally. But Parables are not metaphors. They should be much more in your face preachy. Though she is nicely opinionated, this does not come through in the telling of parables. I'm sure that most gardeners find parable in every shovel of soil, at least I do. But this soil is abundant with interpretation. A parable is not quite so distracted by ambiguity. But a good memoir usually is.
Finally, I would note that this book is rather devoid of human contact. Perhaps a more fitting title would have been Backyard Fables as it has distinctive animal characters. The book is ripe with connection to the plants and animals of the garden but people only appear as resource to that endeavor and there is little sense of connection there. This is not solipsism but a choice.
Having listed the negatives, let me now say that I immensely enjoyed this book. It is in the spirit of transcendentalism. This garden is Waldon Pond visited not for two years but for twenty five and counting. Thoreau wrote of an experience with his environment. Margaret Roach writes of a relationship with her environment. There are two distinctly different personalities of gardener: The pensive and the task oriented. Don't be deceived, Roach is far more the later. And it is her diligence in writing that provides foder for thought. This book is not unlike gardening, it requires a little patience, but it is well worth the effort.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Sara
- 04-10-19
A book for the garden obsessed
Disclaimer: I am already a fan of Margaret Roach from her podcast “A way to garden”.
I find her charming and knowledgeable and thoughtful, if only a little dorky (but even that I love). This book is so quotable, and in my mind, so incredibly relatable to a fellow gardening obsessed human. I want to read more.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-23-20
no thank you.
The author rambles in a non stop flight of ideas. The author appears to be very impressed with what she wrote. I struggled to get to chapter 4 and could not take anymore.
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