Following the success of her first book, Beyond the Chilcotin, Diana Phillips has written a second memoir about ranch life with her father and Canadian folk legend Pan Phillips, after he sells the Home Ranch.
Phillips will read passages from and sign copies of her new book Beyond the Home Ranch at the Open Book this Monday, Nov. 21 starting at 2 p.m.
Beyond the Home Ranch celebrates Phillip’s incredible memory for detail — from the taste of strawberry jam and bannock, the beauty of a poplar grove in fall, the dog that surprised everyone by driving a pick-up truck, to the pranks played on her father, or the time she taught a rude drunk a lesson by hitting him repeatedly in the head with a riding boot — makes her account of a near-pioneer life in the Blackwater country an honest and entertaining read.
Phillips captures the essence of a lifestyle that has now disappeared in her countless extraordinary anecdotes.
Her vivid account of working a ranch and raising her children, as well as helping out a series of new Home Ranch owners, creates an unforgettable portrait of life for a cattle rancher. Phillips sold the ranch in 2004 and moved to Vanderhoof, where she still works in the cattle industry. She has three sons and 10 grandchildren all living nearby.