Second time through, and I'd recommend this even more strongly.

It's a clear, enjoyable, and compelling view of a way of life that is almost completely alien to most of us. It upends a lot of the assumptions that we tend to make about manual and agricultural labor, work/life balance, and the virtues of freedom over tradition and stability. It also challenges a lot of the choices our society has made about food production, economic efficiency, land management, and how we educate our kids. It's not my way of life, or one that I think I would thrive in, but I can see now why someone would be drawn to it, and I feel that it's something that we should value more and try to preserve.