Closer to the Ground: An Outdoor Family's Year on the Water, In the Woods and at the Table

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Closer to the Ground is the deeply personal story of a father learning to share his love of nature with his children, not through the indoor lens of words or pictures, but directly, palpably, by exploring the natural world as they forage, cook and eat from the woods and sea. With illustrations by Nikki McClure.
This compelling, masterfully written tale follows Dylan Tomine and his family through four seasons as they hunt chanterelles, fish for salmon, dig clams and gather at the kitchen table, mouths watering, to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Closer to the Ground captures the beauty and surprise of the natural worldand the ways it teaches us how to livewith humor, gratitude and a nose for adventure as keen as a childs. It is a book filled with weather, natural history and many delicious meals.

Reviews

... An eloquent chronicle of a likable family's attempt to live a more nature-centric life... A refreshingly unsanctimonious take... A lovely homage to the oldest seductress around: Mother Nature. The Washington Pos A conservation advocate and blueberry farmer shares his love of nature with his children by teaching them to forage, fish, and find firewood. -- O Magazine "Tomine is too modest to boast, but he's clearly an adept writer, and Closer to the Ground is as understated as its author, a quietly compelling account of four seasons of foraging just out the back door... This is some of the most evocative, mouthwatering food writing I've ever read... The strength of the book, of course, is that, like Tomine, it leads by example. It's a paean to eating locally without ever being preachy." --Outside "...Tomine expresses peace, gratitude, and satisfaction with life and Mother Nature in an homage reminiscent of Noel Perrin's ruminations on the pleasures of the simple life... While Tomine's memoir is decidedly food-focused (particularly food specific to the Pacific Northwest), he also shares thoughts on matters large and small, whether the many uses of plastic buckets or the trade-offs that must be made in choosing a budget-friendly sustainable lifestyle. That their lifestyle creates quality time for the family is evident from a conversation with his daughter and sweet moments in the woods with his son." --Publishers Weekly "Tomine weaves his memoir with lyrical passages, family dialogues and accounts of gathering shellfish and chanterelles--as well as delicious descriptions of cooking them--in an engaging, slightly self- deprecating tone... Closer to the Ground inspires readers to examine their own daily lives and rediscover their surroundings." --Shelf Awareness "Closer to the Ground is a pleasure to read, depicting as it does the days and seasons of a family intent on living joyfully, and providing at the same time a lively meditation on our relationship with nature. I found its buoyant, irrepressible, self-deprecating tone entirely winning, and was drawn in, happily, from page one." --David Guterson, author of Snow Falling on Cedars "Closer is a good-humored guide to teaching our kids how to learn from nature as teacher and mentor... You can see in Dylan's kids, the more time they spend foraging and fishing with their dad, just how different their relation is to the food they eat, and how they develop a confidence anyone of any age could envy." --Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia "Tomine finds...a way for regular people to live a little more consciously in a world that underpins the contrails and Twitter feeds of our twenty-first-century civilization. Closer to the Ground is accessible, well written, and optimistic. It is a warm reminder that even on the days when salmon are scarce, it is a kind of sustenance to be in the boat together under the sun and to feel the tension on the lines and the rhythm of shifting water in our bodies. --Orion "When Dylan Tomine was young, he and his friends would scamper throughout the neighborhood picking blackberries. 'If you pick 'em, I'll bake it,' his mom would tell him. It was the remembrance of his mom's steaming, fragrant pies, fresh out of the oven that years later would, in part, make wild food gathering a way in which his family could spend time together in the outdoors. In this beautifully written and heartfelt account, Tomine describes his family's forays into nature. They grow vegetables, fish for salmon, dig for oysters, forage for mushrooms, and hunt for deer. The book is not about survival. Tomine fully admits that they still get much more of their food from the grocery store, but, rather it's a way to raise a family in modern times while remaining grounded with the natural environment." --National Outdoor Book Awards

Author Bio

Dylan Tomine, formerly a fly fishing guide, is now a writer, conservation advocate, blueberry farmer and father, not necessarily in that order. His work has appeared in the Flyfish Journal, the Drake, Golfweek, the New York Times and numerous other publications. Thomas Francis McGuane III is an American author. His work includes ten novels, short fiction and screenplays, as well as three collections of essays devoted to his life in the outdoors.