Outstanding in its Field
Published: 4/1/2026
Written by: Severine von Tscharner Welcome
The Mendocino Community Library has received donation of a complete set of the “New Farmers Almanac,” Volumes 1-7. The almanac is a literary miscellany in the form of a monthly calendar, written by farmers across the U.S. Published since 2019, the almanacs are the work of Greenhorns, a young farmers organization based in Maine and led since 2008 by me, a relatively new Mendocino resident. Each 300 page volume contains essays, creative nonfiction, poems, archival material, and contemporary artwork that take us through the year. The almanacs are available for checkout from the library, but if you want to own a copy, all the editions are also for sale at the Gallery Bookstore and Goodlife Café.
The format of the book follows that of Ben Franklin's original “Old Farmers Almanack,” accessible as '”outhouse literature” for short moments of reading in a busy farmer's day. More than 100 new works appear in the latest volume, by farmers, artists, activists, organizers, journalists, storytellers, poets, teachers, scholars, scientists, and chefs. Many themes applicable to Mendocino County are reflected in these pages: adapting to climate change, rural community-building, planting and weeding techniques, appropriate technology, historic recipes adapted for modern cooks, humor, basket weaving, and dealing with economic perplexity, to name a few.
Printed in full color for the first time, the 2025 edition’s theme is PREMONITION. Like dreams, literature allows our psyches to sort, unfold and reorganize memories and meaning. Evolutionary life, learning from challenge and extremity, unfolds with inspiration and trembles toward survival. Humans are earth-bound beings in tune with a world wide web of soil. This edition asks us to share our premonitions and respond to the messages we receive from the living world.
The epigraph for Volume 7 is a quote from Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of “The Secret Garden.” It captures beautifully the spirit of this almanac: “Sometimes in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic: leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden and in all places.”
According to the editor, Patrick Kiley, humans have ordered their ethnobotany, horticulture, agriculture, culture, and their civics through relationships with terrestrial spaces—a world alive with emblems, forebears, signs. Long before empires and plantations and predictive algorithms, we reacted to landscape signals. Greenhorns have a wide range of projects, producing various forms of media and events over the years. One project relevant to the Mendocino coastline is called Seaweed Commons, a working group of seaweed harvesters and small-scale aquaculturists whose whitepaper describes shared goals for both the seaweed farmers and regulators of public waters (www.earthlife.tv/seaweed). Always the Greenhorn mission is to enliven and support young agrarians as they navigate the adversity inherent in running a land-based business in a world gone mad.
The New Farmers Almanac is available to peruse or check out during open hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. As always, there are the latest best-selling fiction and nonfiction books, mysteries and romances, DVDs, and jigsaw puzzles.
Visit the web page (https://www.mendocinocommunitylibrary.org/) to learn more about becoming a member or to find any item in the collection.
Written by: Severine von Tscharner Welcome
The Mendocino Community Library has received donation of a complete set of the “New Farmers Almanac,” Volumes 1-7. The almanac is a literary miscellany in the form of a monthly calendar, written by farmers across the U.S. Published since 2019, the almanacs are the work of Greenhorns, a young farmers organization based in Maine and led since 2008 by me, a relatively new Mendocino resident. Each 300 page volume contains essays, creative nonfiction, poems, archival material, and contemporary artwork that take us through the year. The almanacs are available for checkout from the library, but if you want to own a copy, all the editions are also for sale at the Gallery Bookstore and Goodlife Café.
The format of the book follows that of Ben Franklin's original “Old Farmers Almanack,” accessible as '”outhouse literature” for short moments of reading in a busy farmer's day. More than 100 new works appear in the latest volume, by farmers, artists, activists, organizers, journalists, storytellers, poets, teachers, scholars, scientists, and chefs. Many themes applicable to Mendocino County are reflected in these pages: adapting to climate change, rural community-building, planting and weeding techniques, appropriate technology, historic recipes adapted for modern cooks, humor, basket weaving, and dealing with economic perplexity, to name a few.
Printed in full color for the first time, the 2025 edition’s theme is PREMONITION. Like dreams, literature allows our psyches to sort, unfold and reorganize memories and meaning. Evolutionary life, learning from challenge and extremity, unfolds with inspiration and trembles toward survival. Humans are earth-bound beings in tune with a world wide web of soil. This edition asks us to share our premonitions and respond to the messages we receive from the living world.
The epigraph for Volume 7 is a quote from Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of “The Secret Garden.” It captures beautifully the spirit of this almanac: “Sometimes in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic: leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden and in all places.”
According to the editor, Patrick Kiley, humans have ordered their ethnobotany, horticulture, agriculture, culture, and their civics through relationships with terrestrial spaces—a world alive with emblems, forebears, signs. Long before empires and plantations and predictive algorithms, we reacted to landscape signals. Greenhorns have a wide range of projects, producing various forms of media and events over the years. One project relevant to the Mendocino coastline is called Seaweed Commons, a working group of seaweed harvesters and small-scale aquaculturists whose whitepaper describes shared goals for both the seaweed farmers and regulators of public waters (www.earthlife.tv/seaweed). Always the Greenhorn mission is to enliven and support young agrarians as they navigate the adversity inherent in running a land-based business in a world gone mad.
The New Farmers Almanac is available to peruse or check out during open hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. As always, there are the latest best-selling fiction and nonfiction books, mysteries and romances, DVDs, and jigsaw puzzles.
Visit the web page (https://www.mendocinocommunitylibrary.org/) to learn more about becoming a member or to find any item in the collection.