The Broken Furrow: The Tale of a Welsh Farmer in Canada

If a plough strikes a rock, the furrow-the trench in the earth made by the plough-is broken. The otherwise straight line is disrupted, an imperfection you can’t hide. In competition ploughing, a broken furrow is catastrophic.

From his childhood in wartime Wales to his years working across Canada, author Jeffrey R. Thomas has experienced many rocks in his life. His memoir, The Broken Furrow: The Tale of a Welsh Farmer in Canada, is full of them. Maybe the first was when his father abandoned the generations-long tradition of passing down the family farm. Or when Jeffrey emigrated from Wales to Canada as a result. But no matter what life-and nature-had in store for him, Jeffrey persevered. He had to. That’s why Jeffrey and his growing family moved to Ontario to Manitoba to British Columbia-and back and forth-following where the opportunities took them, whether it was sheep farming, trucking, or sales. But after years of riding the highs and lows, Jeffrey retired-sort of.

Detailed and expansive, The Broken Furrow is more than a memoir about farming and rural living. It’s a story rich with history and adventure, an ode to all the incredible people Jeffrey has met in his long, perfectly imperfect life.