May 7, 2011
Eliot Coleman, one of the early spokespersons for the organic movement and now a "revered icon", has been in the news lately. His daughter, Melissa, has just published a memoir of her life growing up on Coleman's remote homestead in the early '70's, as he and Melissa's mother, his then-wife, honed the skills that would enable him to write three popular how-to books, host radio and public television shows, and guide countless apprentices who made the pilgrimage to his working farm near the Maine coast. From the reviews I have read, Melissa Coleman's book, titled "This Life is in Your Hands", offers an unsentimental account of growing up with a father who was unswervingly committed to the execution of his ideals. Eliot Coleman embraced the back-to-the-land/voluntary simplicity ethic with a single-minded determination that enabled him to spend twelve-hour days felling trees and clearing stumps with only an axe, hauling water with an oxen-yoke, bui...