Never Spank a Porcupine

"There's a lot to be said for dairy farming, I keep telling myself. Actually, dairying wouldn't be bad at all if it weren't for cows. Now, no one should infer from this that I don't like cows. I do. I really do, especially with onions, mushrooms, and gravy." So begins this collection of hilarious memoirs from Phyllis Tenney Mudgett, who once sent a letter to the governor of Vermont, offering her body to be stuffed, mounted, and displayed beside "The Last Vermont Panther" in the Vermont History Museum, as a specimen of a rapidly disappearing species: a native born Vermont farmwife. She grew up on a tiny farm in the hills of Vermont surrounded with brothers, male cousins, and rowdy neighbor boys. She held her own. This book covers a part of her eventful life. As she explains, "I don't get up in the morning thinking, 'What outrageous thing can I do today?' Things happen and I cope. Honest."