From the celebrated author of the beloved bestseller The Dirty Life,
a "beguiling memoir about the simple life" (Elle), Kristin Kimball
describes the delicious highs and sometimes excruciating lows of life on
Essex Farm--a 500-acre farm that produces a full diet for a community of
250 people.
The Dirty Life chronicled Kimball's move from New York City to 500
acres near Lake Champlain where she started a new farm with her partner,
Mark. In Good Husbandry, she reveals what happened over the next five
years at Essex Farm.
Farming has many ups and downs, and the middle years were hard for the
Kimballs. Mark got injured, the weather turned against them, and the
farm faced financial pressures. Meanwhile, they had two small children
to care for. How does one traverse the terrain of a maturing marriage
and the transition from being a couple to being a family? How will the
farm survive? What does a family need in order to be happy?
Kristin had chosen Mark and farm life after having a good look around
the world, with a fair understanding of what her choices meant. She knew
she had traded the possibility of a steady paycheck, of wide open
weekends and spontaneous vacations, for a life and work that was
challenging but beautiful and fulfilling. So with grit and grace and a
good sense of humor, she chose to dig in deeper.
Featuring some of the same local characters and cherished animals first
introduced in The Dirty Life, (Jet the farm dog, Delia the dairy cow,
and those hardworking draft horses), plus a colorful cast of aspiring
first-generation farmers who work at Essex Farm to acquire the skills
they need to start sustainable farms of their own, Good Husbandry is
about animals and plants, farmers and food, friends and neighbors, love
and marriage, births and deaths, growth and abundance.
