Its Head Came Off by Accident

A Memoir

By (author) Muffy Mead-Ferro

Paperback - £11.99

Publication date:

18 November 2012

Length of book:

192 pages

Publisher

TwoDot

ISBN-13: 9780762780648

Its Head Came Off by Accident is a humorous, yet poignant reflection on gratitude and loss. It describes a childhood that takes place on a vast Wyoming landscape--more than 6,000 acres near near Jackson Hole and adjacent to Grand Teton National Park--where the author grew up with adventure-crazed, raucous brothers and friends, and a colorful collection of Western characters, most particularly her own mother. Mead-Ferro's desire to move back to her childhood homeland from the city is weighed with how she felt when she did live on the cattle ranch, always unsure if she fit in.  
 
When Mead-Ferro's mother is killed in a freak horse accident while herding cattle, Mead-Ferro faces the loss not only of this profoundly influential person but of the entire ranching operation: a century-old legacy. After she and her brothers sell the family ranch Mead-Ferro attempts to recreate the landscape of her childhood--particularly the privileges and responsibilities of land, animals, and real work--as a bequest to her own children.

Mead-Ferro’s wonderful memoir more closely resembles a collection of picaresque snapshots of the rough-and-tumble western life and times that existed even well into the twentieth century in Wyoming. More than that, though, her reminiscences beg a question. Did growing up on a ranch imbue her with a willful spirit? Or was it the result of having a mother who apparently believed in keeping loose but ready reins on her children? Whatever the answer, Mead-Ferro seems to have come away none the worse for it.In fact, arguably better. Certainly more capable. Indeed, she misses her unique—at least to city folk—heritage so much that she is attempting to recapture just a glimmer of it for her own children to experience. Even so, there is no going home again. The family ranch was sold off and Mead-Ferro has had to settle for being a part-time rancher and farmer on the wrong side of the Tetons. Ah, but the memories. It is good to savor the memories.

— Donna Chavez, Booklist