The sheep have written a book (this may have been a mistake)
Hello from the pasture,
The sheep have done something that probably should not have been allowed.
They helped me write a book.
It’s called Freedom Farm, and starting today I’m releasing it as a weekly podcast — one chapter every Saturday.
Here is the important part:
The podcast chapters will be available only to paying subscribers of Pasture Politics.
Not because I’m trying to be fancy.
Mostly because the sheep insist that if they are going to overthrow fictional tyrants in a Catskills pasture, they should at least earn enough money for snacks.
So here’s the plan.
Every Saturday, I’ll publish a podcast episode reading one chapter of the rough draft of the book. There are 20 chapters total, so this will run for the next 20 weeks.
Think of it as a strange hybrid between:
• an audiobook
• a political satire
• a sheep-led focus group
• and a slow-motion literary experiment happening in public
The twist is that this is still a working draft.
Which means the Pasture Politics community gets to help shape the final version.
If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll be able to:
• Listen to each chapter as it drops
• Comment with feedback, ideas, or “Justin please delete this entire paragraph”
• Watch the book evolve in real time
In other words, you’ll become the editorial advisory board of the pasture.
For those who are new here, Freedom Farm is a modern political satire inspired by Animal Farm.
It takes place right here in the Catskills, where the animals of North Star Farm overthrow their useless owner — a selfie-obsessed influencer named Chester Gilt — and attempt to build a fair and equal society.
This goes well for approximately six minutes.
Then a loud, orange-fleeced ram named Boss Rudd seizes power, installs a propaganda chief named Bleatrix Spinn, and begins rewriting reality one “alternative bleat” at a time.
By winter, the farm has turned into a personality cult powered by grievance, propaganda, and sheep who are increasingly aware that something has gone very wrong.
Fortunately, a small group of sheep — Fancy Pants, Janet, Simone, Marvin, Whitney, and the twins Bruce and Frankie — decide they are not particularly interested in living inside a dystopian livestock social media feed.
So they start plotting.
That’s the story.
Or at least the beginning of it.
If you’d like to listen to Chapter 1, help shape the book, and generally participate in what may become the strangest literary project on Substack, you can upgrade here:
It’s $5/month or $50/year, which the sheep inform me is approximately the price of one latte or two if the barista is honest.
Either way, thank you for being part of this weird little pasture community.
The sheep appreciate your support.
Even Marvin, who believes the entire publishing industry is secretly run by raccoons.
More soon.
Justin
Temporary Shepherd of the Editorial Flock
Pasture Politics