For the Oaks family at Aumery Park Farm in Sleightholmedale, life and death follow the rhythms of the seasons.

As the children grow to adulthood, Jonadab Oaks finds his patriarchal authority diminishing. Joseph is already far away in Canada: now George and Elizabeth insist on a home of their own, wild Tamar defies him to make a life with her illegitimate child outside the dale, and even docile Martha wants to wed.

But family is family, and as his increasingly far-flung brood face their own joys and sorroes, times of loss and prosperity, Jonadab learns a new wisdom - and keeps a new generation of Oaks heartbound to the farm in the Yorkshire Dales . . .