Jerry Apps latest book, Simple Things: Lessons from the Family Farm, delivers in wonderful small doses exactly what the title states. He dedicates the book to his parents, Herman and Eleanor Apps, “who taught me the importance of the simple things in life.”

“As I was walking around my farm the other day, I came upon an old cedar fence post. It was gray and weathered, with a decided lean to the east and a few pieces of rusty barbwire still attached. It was probably set in the ground by Weston Coombes, who farmed this property with his mother, Ina, until the early 1960’s. The sig...