A Book of Seasons

Ron Balthazor

A Book of Seasons

This book is not what you think it is. Or rather, it is more than you think it is. You will find here not just stories about living on a small farm in the Georgia Piedmont, but about life on that small farm. Ron Balthazor’s close observation of the inhabitants of the land—from earthworms to armadillos, honeybees to black vultures, pea seedlings to soaring oaks—nurtures curiosity and wonder that invite even closer concentration and contemplation. These meditations on the natural world (both cultivated and wild) all, ultimately, point toward connection: between writers ancient and modern, humans and nonhumans, elemental forces and our beating hearts. Balthazor’s ideas and stories might be funny or solemn, sour or sweet, but all are keenly crafted and disclose his deep interest in the connections hidden in the histories of words themselves. In the spirit of Henry David Thoreau (he’s funnier than you remember) and in the tradition of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, these chapters invite you into a year of discovering the holiness suffusing even the humblest parts of creation and reflecting on its implications for ourselves and others of all kinds. This is a book about attention. It is a book about communion.

"Ron Balthazor's book is a sensory and spiritual delight. Channeling Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, among other inspirational writers, he describes the wonder, meaning, and solace he finds on a small farm in the Georgia Piedmont. Through a year of seasons, Balthazor offers monthly meditations on his garden and the natural world. His essays embrace the continuity of life and death in all living things: a comforting balm we need now more than ever."

-- Sally Sierer Bethea, author of "Keeping the Chattahoochee: Reviving and Defending a Great Southern River."

"In Walden, Thoreau elevated a nondescript pond into a touchstone for developing a deep human relationship with the rest of the natural world. Well-versed in Thoreau, Ron Balthazor directs the reader's attention southward to a landscape many think not worth a second look: the Georgia Piedmont, deforested and relentlessly plowed for the past 250 years. Most would see a place only fit for suburban sprawl. But Balthazor is a doer, investing many of his waking hours on his chosen home, sometimes with scythe in hand, at others on his knees offering fallen leaves as soothing balm for red clay.  Balthazor calls us to a deeper appreciation of what remains and how it can be conjured to life once more."

-- Dorinda G. Dallmeyer, award-winning author, photographer, and media producer with a focus on Southern environmental history. 

A Book of Seasons will be published by Mercer University Press in the May of 2026.