The Free Hand
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The Free Hand
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Narrated by:
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Joseph B. Kearns
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By:
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Lance Oren
About this listen
A lighthearted series of short stories about life on a working dairy farm in the '50s and '60s.
These are the humorous adventures of a seven-year-old city slicker's indoctrination into the farming community, where every four-legged and feathered creature was planning his demise. This is a unique look into the farming families of yesteryear and is most entertaining for all ages.
©2015 Lance Oren (P)2015 Lance OrenListeners also enjoyed...
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5 out of 5 stars
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-
Story5 out of 5 stars 259
The four Melendy children live with their father and Cuffy, their beloved housekeeper, in a worn but comfortable brownstone in New York City. There's thirteen-year-old Mona, who has decided to become an actress; twelve-year-old mischievous Rush; ten-year-old Randy who loves to dance and paint; and thoughtful Oliver, who is just six-years-old.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent for children and adults
- By Dale on 05-15-04
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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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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 375
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 328
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 328
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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5 out of 5 stars
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Uplifting memoir of a pig + autobiography
- By Diana on 04-04-19
By: Sy Montgomery
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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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Overall4 out of 5 stars 387
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Story4 out of 5 stars 289
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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3 out of 5 stars
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Hmmm.
- By THoward on 09-30-09
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The Bucolic Plague
- How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir
- By: Josh Kilmer-Purcell
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 218
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 192
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 192
A happy series of accidents and a doughnut-laden escape upstate take Josh Kilmer-Purcell and his partner, Brent Ridge, to the doorstep of the magnificent (and fabulously for sale) Beekman Mansion. And so begins their transformation from uptight urbanites into the 200-year-old-mansion-owning Beekman Boys. Suddenly Josh---a full-time New Yorker with a successful advertising career---and Brent find themselves weekend farmers, surrounded by nature's bounty and an eclectic cast.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Selling your dream and name dropping
- By Mark on 09-13-12
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Prodigal Summer
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,102
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,358
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,355
Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives in southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches them from an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and her solitary life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing!
- By Lily on 10-12-08
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Father and I Were Ranchers
- Little Britches # 1
- By: Ralph Moody
- Narrated by: Cameron Beierle
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,959
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,608
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,609
The Moody family moves from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Experience the pleasures and perils of ranching in 20th Century America, through the eyes of a youngster.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Very dissappointed , too much cussing.
- By Lovelessnomore on 05-29-15
By: Ralph Moody
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Dirty Chick
- Adventures of an Unlikely Farmer
- By: Antonia Murphy
- Narrated by: Antonia Murphy
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,098
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,005
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,007
One month into our stay, we'd managed to dispatch most of our charges. We executed the chickens. One of the cats disappeared, clearly disgusted with our urban ways. And Lucky [the cow] was escaping almost daily. It seemed we didn't have much of a talent for farming. And we still had eleven months to go." Antonia Murphy, you might say, is an unlikely farmer. Born and bred in San Francisco, she spent much of her life as a liberal urban cliché, and her interactions with the animal kingdom rarely extended past dinner.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Loved it!
- By kara-karina on 02-11-15
By: Antonia Murphy
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My Life in Dog Years
- By: Gary Paulsen
- Narrated by: Gary Paulsen
- Length: 1 hr and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 196
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 164
Gary Paulsen has owned dozens of unforgettable and amazing dogs. In each chapter he tells of one special dog, among them Cookie, the sled dog who saved his life; Snowball, the puppy he owned as a boy in the Philippines; Ike, his mysterious hunting companion; Dirk, the grim protector; and his true friend Josh, a brilliant border collie.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gary Paulsen’s My life with Dogs is hysterical
- By A Holly Winter Mystery on 01-04-19
By: Gary Paulsen
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The Brushstroke Legacy
- By: Lauraine Snelling
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story5 out of 5 stars 76
When Chicago native Ragni Claussen grudgingly agrees to take her sullen niece with her to spruce up the family's old North Dakota cabin, she uncovers long-hidden secrets about how her greatgrandmother - in 1903 - learned to live and paint and love in this very place.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent another Jewel from Laurraine Snelling
- By Cecilia McNeil on 11-01-16
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The Yorkshire Shepherdess
- By: Amanda Owen
- Narrated by: Anne Dover
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Amanda Owen has been seen by millions on ITV's The Dales, living a life that has almost gone in today's modern world, a life ruled by the seasons and her animals. She is a farmer's wife and shepherdess, living alongside her husband, Clive, and seven children at Ravenseat, a 2,000 acre sheep hill farm at the head of Swaledale in North Yorkshire. It's a challenging life but one she loves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I want to go and have cream tea and meet all the animals and the shepherdess herself
- By luvs aussies on 05-30-19
By: Amanda Owen
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Claiming Ground
- By: Laura Bell
- Narrated by: Laurie Birmingham
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
A transcendent memoir from an author of rare talent, Laura Bell’s Claiming Ground recounts Bell’s time living mostly alone in the hills of Wyoming, where she herded sheep and cattle and battled isolation. A journey to the heart of self, Bell’s work sparkles with shimmering prose and remarkable insight.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful writing
- By Rand Hall on 11-01-16
By: Laura Bell
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The Long Valley
- By: John Steinbeck, John H. Timmerman - introduction
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 230
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 199
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 197
A Penguin Classic. First published in 1938, this volume of stories collected with the encouragement of his longtime editor Pascal Covici serves as a wonderful introduction to the work of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Set in the beautiful Salinas Valley of California, where simple people farm the land and struggle to find a place for themselves in the world, these stories reflect Steinbeck’s characteristic interests: The tensions between town and country, laborers and owners, past and present.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Generally Good Stories, Some are Great
- By Michael on 06-18-13
By: John Steinbeck, and others
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Horses Never Lie About Love
- The Heartwarming Story of a Remarkable Horse Who Changed the World Around Her
- By: Jana Harris
- Narrated by: Susanna Burney
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4 out of 5 stars 70
Combining the drama of The God of Animals with the powerful realism of Chosen by a Horse, award-winning poet Jana Harris tells the inspiring story of her twenty-four-year relationship with a troubled but beautiful, blood-red feral mare who, in spite of her difficult past, has a talent for healing and helping every human and other being she comes into contact with.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Started off promising
- By Denise Di Giorgio on 03-23-12
By: Jana Harris
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Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
- An African Childhood
- By: Alexandra Fuller
- Narrated by: Lisette Lecat
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 794
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 790
Alexandra Fuller tells the idiosyncratic story of her life growing up white in rural Rhodesia as it was becoming Zimbabwe. The daughter of hardworking, yet strikingly unconventional English-bred immigrants, Alexandra arrives in Africa at the tender age of two. She moves through life with a hardy resilience, even as a bloody war approaches. Narrator Lisette Lecat reads this remarkable memoir of a family clinging to a harsh landscape and the dying tenets of colonialism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An African Childhood of Harrowing Proportions
- By Sara on 10-12-15
By: Alexandra Fuller
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Winterfrost
- By: Michelle Houts
- Narrated by: Amy McFadden
- Length: 4 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
Christmas has come, and with it a sparkling white winterfrost over the countryside. But twelve-year-old Bettina's parents have been called away unexpectedly, leaving her in charge of the house, the farm, and baby Pia. In all the confusion, Bettina's family neglects to set out the traditional bowl of Christmas rice pudding for the tiny nisse who are rumored to look after the family and their livestock.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My kids were riveted
- By Becca Horner on 12-05-18
By: Michelle Houts