T.D. Motley

An artist-farmer defends his North Texas homestead with a paintbrush, a shovel, and stubborn love. In this sequel to The Art of Farming, Sam Bartlett tends thirty acres of land, paints by night, teaches, gardens, raises animals, and faces the pressures of family change and suburban development. Told in a warm, wry voice, the novel celebrates stewardship, creativity, and community as acts of resistance.

T. D. Motley’s novel The Art of Farming celebrates a symbiosis of plants, humans, dogs and livestock, with wildlife cousins on the fringes. Retired art teacher, Sam Bartlett, works thirty acres outside the town of Elysia. Texas. Aided by his lovely “sidekick,” Annie, and a handful of local after-school teens, Sam markets herbs and produce, and face off with his most formidable antagonist, a miniature donkey named Sol who schemes daily to outwit him.