Sue Hubbell was a librarian at Brown University.

"Being a librarian has its points. You get to wear orthopedic shoes and a tiny frown as you snap the elastic band on your packet of catalog cards."

Her husband Paul was a university teacher and administrator. In the early 70's, they quit their jobs and bought farm in the Missouri Ozarks.

"We had to find something to do to make a living, and Paul said that since we didn't know anything about cows we might as well become beekeepers. At the time that seemed perfectly reasonable."

Sue Hubbell lived twenty-five years on that 99-acre farm at the end of a dirt road in Southern Missouri -- many of them alone after her marriage to Paul ended. She learned beekeeping and the honey business so well that she became the largest honey producer in the region.

A Country Year is loosely organized around the seasons of the year, but the book is really about Sue Hubbell's encounters with the creatures, plants, and people that enter her life. Among her creature tales, bees figure prominently, of course. But so do bats, birds, snakes, spiders, frogs, opossums, and chiggers. Most intriguing is her story about why moth ear mites only lay their eggs in one of a moth's ears.

Plants, especially the wildflowers are noticed in spring

". . . the wildflower whose common name I like the best of all, hoary puccoon. Puccoon is an Indian word. I do not know its meaning, but I like its sound. There are other puccoons, hairy and narrow-leaved, but mine, the hoary, has thick clusters of yellowish-orange blossoms. They are as pretty and showy as any cultivated flowers in a formal garden, and make the rocky glade overlooking the river and creek beautiful beyond telling."

Gentle, respectful stories of neighbors, visitors, and friends are part of every season.

"The people who live here have been idealized by the back-to-the-landers while they still lived in cities but they are not simple people at all. Ozarkers lead lives as complicated as those of people anywhere else, However, they are competent and resourceful about living in these hills; they are quiet about it too, so it looks easy and . . . simple."