by John Knott
U-M Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature John Knott's Almost Country explores the efforts of a couple whose children have left home to establish a new way of living in the semi-rural countryside outside Ann Arbor, Michigan. Essays describe their adventures in building a house responsive to its environment and in becoming stewards of a little over three mainly wooded acres, encouraging native plants and attempting with varying success to hold off invasives. Collectively, they present a story of getting to know a place intimately and learning to deal with challenges from the human and natural worlds, from developers and county officials to windstorms, a hatch of seventeen-year cicadas, flying squirrels in the attic, and a bullfrog that takes up residence for the winter in the basement floor drain.
