The Salt Stones

“Helen Whybrow is a to-the-bone writer, and this is a to-the-bone book—beautiful, real, full of life.”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

“Sheep have helped me become a good shepherd, not just to them, but to a place that is my sustenance and joy as well as my unending labor and worry."

In the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Helen Whybrow and her partner set out to restore an old two-hundred-acre farm. Knowing that “belonging requires, more than anything, participation,” they begin to intertwine their lives with the land. But soon after releasing a flock of Icelandic sheep onto the worn-out fields, Whybrow realizes that the art of shepherding extends far beyond the flock and fences of Knoll Farm.

In prose both vivid and lean, The Salt Stones offers an intimate and profoundly moving story of what it means to care for a flock and truly inhabit a piece of land. The shepherd’s life unfolds for Whybrow in the seasons and cycles of farming and family—birthing lambs, fending off coyotes, rescuing lost sheep in a storm, and raising children while witnessing her mother’s decline. Exploring the interdependence of animals, as well as of the earth and ourselves, Whybrow reflects on the ways sheep connect her to place and to the ancient practice of shepherding. 

Evocative, affectionate, and illuminating, The Salt Stones sings of a way of life that is at once ancient and entirely contemporary, inspiring us all to seek greater intimacy and a sense of belonging wherever our home place may be.