Books


Shepherdess: Notes from the Field by Joan Jarvis Ellison


Published in 1995 by Purdue University Press - A series of essays about learning how (or how not) to raise sheep. Click here to purchase this book in our store.

The following excerpt is from the introduction to Shepherdess: Notes from the Field, published by Purdue University Press in 1995.

One June I bought four sheep as pets. The following March I began to be a shepherdess...

I finished lambing preparations on the first day my sheep could possibly lamb. Any time in the next six weeks, four baby lambs would be born. I was uncertain and afraid. No question, I was in over my head. I never should have bred those sheep. The books were not encouraging. They listed and then illustrated eight common lambing problems. Then they told what to do for each problem. The instructions read something like this: 1) determine the problem; 2) wash your hands and arm with soap and warm water; 3) lubricate your hand and arm; 4) don't panic. Honestly, every single book had point four listed. That's like telling someone not to think about purple elephants. Besides, I had panicked way back at point two, when it said to wash my hands and arm. Arm!

Newborn triplets!


The Faces of Change by Joan Jarvis Ellison


Published in 2005 by the Otter Tail County Historical Society - The true story of how a small town faced a huge change in demographics and not only survived, but triumphed. Click here to purchase this book in our store.

The following is an excerpt from Faces of Change, published in 2005 by the Otter Tail County Historical Society.

Everything you've ever owned and loved is gone and, if you are lucky enough to survive, you find yourself alone and bewildered in a foreign land. You are a refugee. The fact is, refugees are just like you and me, except they have nothing. And that's exactly what they will always have unless we help them.

(United Nations High Commission on Refugees)

One day as I walked across a parking lot in Pelican Rapids, a young Somali woman, in a beautiful black and gold hijab, approached me, holding out her car key.

"Please help," she said.

"Won't it start?" I asked.

Diane Kimm and her "grandchildren" from The Faces of Change.
Photo by Mel Zierke.

She shook her head and handed me the keys. An older woman in a burgundy hijab sat in the passenger seat. She smiled uneasily as I slid into the car. I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. The car was in park, no clutch. I turned the wheel and turned the key. The car started. I turned off the car and smiled at the young woman hovering at the door. "The steering wheel lock was on," I explained, turning the wheel until it locked.

She smiled pleasantly, but obviously hadn't understood a word I said. She motioned toward the key again, "please."

I turned the wheel and the engine grumbled to life. "Steering wheel locked," I repeated, demonstrating, before I stepped out of the car.
The young woman smiled again, this time her face alight with understanding. "Thank you," she said. "I Sofia."

Community is built one smile, one interaction, one conversation at a time. Not all communities welcome people who differ from their norm. Sometimes interracial tensions rise and escalate into discrimination, war, genocide. But if enough people care, together, they can create something great, a city that values all of its diverse parts, a city that nurtures the needy and the new comer, a city that brings people together rather than building walls between them. If enough people care, they can create a community in the most profound sense of the world."



From Sheep to Shawl: Stories and Patterns for Fiber Lovers, by Joan Jarvis Ellison

Published in 2011 by Wandering Minstrel Press - Thoughts about raising sheep, doing fiber work and the intersection of art and craft, along with a selection of patterns for fiber artists of all levels of experience.

The following is an excerpt from From Sheep to Shawl: Stories and Patterns for Fiber Lovers, published in 2011 by Wandering Minstrel Press. Click here to purchase this book in our store.

I planted ten woad seeds in my garden. All I knew about woad was that it was a biennial, it had blue flowers, and was the source of a blue dye so ancient that the Picts used woad to dye their bodies blue before they went into battle against the Romans.

My daughter Amber in a naturally dyed sweater.
The blue yarn was dyed with woad.

The next summer, the woad flowered, nine plants of it, delicate yellow flowers. I obviously knew even less about woad than I had thought. I dug out one of my natural dye books to see what to do with my woad flowers. The book said to use the leaves just before the plant flowered!

The following summer I planted a twenty-five foot row of woad. Finally, early the next summer, I was ready to harvest the crop. I read my reference book again...The first recipe called for four gallons of stale urine. "Keep it in a tightly capped jar for five to six weeks" the recipe said. Impossible! I wasn't sure I could collect four gallons of urine in five to six weeks, and furthermore, I would no longer have fresh woad leaves in five to six weeks; it would be October and the plants would be dormant.

The recipe that called for the smallest amount of urine (only 3 quarts) specified that it must be collected from a boy child, preferably in the morning. My daughters were 17 and 21, and I didn't know any boy children well enough to ask them for three quarts of urine. I began to see why this dyeing technique had gone out of favor."



Many Cultures, One Community: a Book of Stories and Recipes,by Joan Jarvis Ellison and Sally Williams.


A collaboration by the Pelican Rapids Multicultural Committee, Friends of the Pelican Rapids Library and Pelican Rapids School District #548, this book includes recipes from old immigrants and new immigrants; recipes from farmers, hunters, and fishermen; recipes from old people and young people. Local restaurants have shared recipes, as have vendors at the farmer's market. Each recipe is accompanied by a story about the person who contributed it. This book promotes and preserves our cultural diversity and allows us to learn from each other. Click here to purchase this book in our store.

The following is an excerpt from Many Cultures, One Community: a Book of Stories and Recipes

Photo by Julianna Kuhn

Bosnian Coffee

Contributed by Šemsa Nemec

3/4 cup any brand of coffee beans
6 cups water
Sugar and cream

1. Grind coffee beans for 1-2 minutes until they are very fine.

2. Bring water to a boil in a pan on high heat.

3. Stir in 2 teaspoons of sugar.

4. Add the ground coffee, turn the heat to medium and bring back to a boil.

5. Serve in very small cups with cream and sugar to taste. Serves 6.


Šemsa Nemec is a Bosnian Muslim, her husband Sinisha and brother–in–law are Croatian Catholics, and her sister-in-law a Serbian Orthodox Christian. They all lived in Bosnia until the country erupted in violence in the 1990s. Now they live in Pelican Rapids and celebrate all of each others holidays. “I have two Christmas, two Easter and two Byrum,” Šemsa said, smiling. The first Byrum is at the end of Ramadan, the of month of fasting in the Muslim religion, when people eat at 5:00 am every morning and then don’t eat or drink again until after sunset.

At Byrum, the holiday at the end of Ramadan, Muslims celebrate by making lots of food and spending time with family and friends. “When people come for Byrum,” Śemsa said, “sit down and eat food and drink coffee and talking.” Baklava is one of the special foods served during Byrum and every family makes it. Traditionally, the dough for the pastry is rolled out very, very thin, into a piece large enough to cover the top of a table. Then it is cut and layered in a pan with oil, sugar and chopped nuts. After baking, a sugar syrup is poured over the pastry. Šemsa learned how to make baklava by watching her mother, but living in the United States has taught her a major shortcut. Instead of rolling it out, she buys boxes of the paper thin fillo dough frozen at the grocery store.

With the time saved by using pre-made dough, Šemsa crochets beautiful lace for herself, her family and to sell. Her work decorates their house, white lace with red hearts edges the shelves in her glass fronted cabinets, shimmering green mila, or doilies cover her coffee table. Her most exquisite work, that displayed in art shows at Lake Region Arts Council, hangs on the wall of her living room. She even crochets baskets and vases and stiffens them with sugar syrup. In the summer, Šemsa gardens, growing dahlias of enormous size and beauty and growing a wide variety of vegetables in the small greenhouse that Sinisha built beside their home. She mothers her son, Kevin, helps him with his home work, and volunteers in the community. She has helped several years with kindergarten classes and on projects at the library, and every June, she makes two big pans of baklava for the International Friendship Festival. “American people too much like baklava,” she said, “gone in one hour.”

 How to Paint a Sheep                     



What happens when you combine a bunch of kids, a spray bottle of Kool-Aid and a flock of sheep? Find out in How to Paint a Sheep, a nonfiction picture book by Joan Jarvis Ellison with photographs by Peter Jarvis, Dave Ellison, and Amber Ellison Walker. The photos have been enhanced with colored pencil by Amber Ellison Walker. Click here to purchase this book from our store.










Tangled Web a novel  



Most women have midlife crises, even those living on sheep farms. But not every crisis involves being suspected of murder.
Tangled Web joins Jenny Johnson at the low point of her life when her enjoyment and connection to her children, her husband and her sheep have lost all their charm; when even attending a New Years party feels like a string of bad decisions. In an effort to break out of the routines of her life, Jenny apprentices herself to a charismatic fiber artist and business woman. But the routines of Jenny’s life follow along behind her. She is still working on a sheep farm, baling hay and caring for lambs; and her children and husband do not disappear from her life just because she disappears from theirs.
Click here to buy a copy of this book from our store.  and husband do not disappear from her life just because she disappears from theirs

The following is an excerpt from Tangled Web a novel:

"After dinner, Michael and I walked out to check the pasture and the sheep.  Tree swallows swooped low over the fields, scooping up the mosquitoes that  rose in clouds around us.  Stupid walked in front of us, butted our hands, and generally got in our way as we walked through the flock.  "Are you learning a lot?" Michael asked after a while, brushing at a mosquito that was buzzing around him.
"I nodded.  Michael and the kids were exactly the same, but I felt different, odd. All the neat things I'd stored inside me to share with Michael were stuck.  I couldn't find a way to start talking.
"So far, I said slowly,"So far," I said slowly, “I haven't learned much about dyeing."
"But that's why you went, isn't it?"
I rubbed my hands up and down my arms.  The mosquitoes were ignoring our mosquito repellant.  "Yeah, sort of."
"What do you mean ‘sort of’?" Michael hit his forehead with the heel of his hand and then rubbed off the dead bug.
"Well, I mean, um, yes, I wanted to learn to dye."  We were walking faster now, trying to avoid the swarms of bloodthirsty insects.  "But I also wanted to find myself, find something I was passionate about."
I could hear my voice slide up as I ended the sentence.  As if I was asking Michael's permission to find myself.
"Find yourself.”  Michael grated out.  "Find yourself.  God Jenny!"  We were bouncing up and down now, brushing at our arms and faces.
"I can't stand these mosquitoes!  The sheep are fine. Let's run."
Michael grabbed my hand and pulled me after him as we ran stumbling and panting back through the pastures to the house.  We slammed the screen door behind us and swatted at the mosquitoes that had followed us into the kitchen.
"Hey Mom," Zach shouted. "You should see what Harriet does with dead flies."
"What?"  I asked as he skidded to a halt in front of us.
"Nothing,” he laughed.  “I forgot that tarantulas don't eat dead flies."
"What did you do with the leftovers?" Michael asked as Mindy's voice shrieked from upstairs. Zach looked over his shoulder. 
"I was going to throw them away, but," his voice stopped, his face innocent.  Mindy was almost at the bottom of the stairs, still shouting. "The wind blew them all off the paper."
"That little brat threw his dead flies in my room."  Mindy grabbed at Zachary as he slipped behind Michael."I didn't; it was the wind."
I put my hand on Mindy's shoulder."Calm down, Mindy. The flies are Zach's responsibility; he'll pick them up."
"All three hundred and forty seven of them?"
"Three hundred and forty seven?"  I asked.
Mindy nodded. "His cabin all worked at it."
"We can count better in Russian than anyone at camp," added Zach, stepping out from behind Michael's back.
"Except the counselors," Mindy said.
"Our counselors said it was a good learning experience,"  Zach said.  "I'm sorry Mindy. I'll pick them up."
"OK brat, you can teach me to count to 347 while you're at it."  They started up the stairs.
"I'm not sure all 347 flies are in your room Mindy.” Zach looked up at her. “There might still be some in Harriet's cage."
"Brat," Mindy said affectionately. “You'll have to help me put away my stuff so we can find them all."
Michael and I looked at each other and started to laugh. 


My Sheep Can Dance                       


When sheep learn how to dance, anything can happen...

This  rhymed sheep story  is illustrated  with charming water color paintings by Montana artist Linda Christensen.

"When Davy Davidson played violin, 
he tucked his instrument under his chin.
He fingered the strings and stroked with his bow
and people who heard him danced to and fro.

His children danced from the time they could walk;
they'd much rather dance than weed, clean or talk.
They danced with the cats, they danced with the dog.
They danced with the goats, the lambs and the hog."