Overview

From the author of the beloved bestseller The Dirty Life, this ""superb memoir chronicles the evolution of a farm, marriage, family, and her own personal identity with humor, insight, and candor"" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) detailing life on Essex Farm--a 500-acre farm that produces food 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 chose 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 ""considers what it means to build a good, happy life, and how we are tested in that endeavor"" (Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes).

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9781501111655

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Reviews

As Kimball chronicles that first year in supple prose, the farm takes on vivid form, with the frustrations balancing the satisfactions and the dark complementing the light. Throughout the book, the author ably describes the various trials and tribulations involved... A hearty, chromatic account of a meaningful accomplishment in farming. --Kirkus Reviews Kimball writes in vivid but unsentimental language, equal parts dirt and poetry. --Burlington Free Press Kimball is a graceful, luminous writer with an eye for detail... How lucky we are to be able to step into that world with no sweat. I wished for a hundred pages more. --Minneapolis Star Tribune In her beguiling memoir, Kimball describes the complex truth about the simple life in prose that is observant and lyrical, yet tempered by a farmer's lack of sentimentality. --Elle Magazine The Dirty Life is a wonderfully told tale of one of the most interesting farms in the country. If you want to understand the heart and soul of the new/old movement towards local food, this is the book you need. It's the voice of what comes next in this land, of the generation unleashed by Wendell Berry to do something really grand. --Bill McKibben, author Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet The Dirty Life is a delightful, tumultuous, and tender story of the author's love affair with the man who becomes her husband and the farm they work together to restore. With wisdom and humor, Kristin Kimball describes how she abandoned her career in New York City, leaving behind everything she thought was important for a hard, distinctly unglamorous existence that turns out to be the most fulfilling thing she's ever done. --Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle

"""Exquisite... describes the surprising enchantment of crops that need tending, cows that need milking... The children thrive, meals are glorious and bountiful... my gratitude for those who spend their lives giving us food grows ever more bountiful. I closed this lovely book with a fervent wish that everyone in it live happily ever after."" -Dominique Browning, The New York Times Book Review ""Frighteningly intelligent... an excellent follow-up... offers a vivid example of what a good, sustainable, modern family farm looks like but also a reminder of how furiously, almost masochistically, devoted you have to be to keep such a place alive."" -Stephen Heyman, Vogue ""Captures the feel of late autumn days in the fields, the joy of raising their two daughters on the farm. But it also records the strain of a struggling small business and the pressure that can bring to bear on a marriage... Survival is victory for small farms these days."" -Brian Mann, NPR ""The author-turned-farmer gets real about marital problems, financial hardships, and the pleasure of eating what you grow."" -Sam Gillette, People Magazine ""The achievement at Essex Farm is heroic, and this book is a vivid and inspiring account of alternative agriculture, filled with a visceral feeling for the earth and a love of seasonal, organic food."" -PD Smith, The Guardian ""Kimball is a key voice for the young farmers taking on the hardest but most satisfying work."" -Concord Monitor ""Kimball's superb memoir chronicles the evolution of a farm, marriage, family, and her own personal identity with humor, insight, and candor...Readers curious about small-farm life, or simply how one woman weathers great change both professionally and personally, will love Kimball's gutsy, generous second memoir."" -Publishers Weekly, STARRED review ""This book is for all readers of memoir and lovely prose."" -Booklist, STARRED review ""With warmth, honesty and vivid anecdotes, Kimball weaves a compelling narrative... She writes movingly about accepting the gifts and the hardships of each season, outer and inner. Good Husbandry is a clear-eyed tribute to a tough but nourishing rural life and the deep, sustainable joy it provides."" -Shelf Awareness ""Like all good stories - fiction or nonfiction - Kimball's memoir considers what it means to build a good, happy life, and how we are tested in that endeavor. You don't need to know the first thing about farming to love this book."" -Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again, Yes ""I've always wondered what became of Kristin and Mark after The Dirty Life, and this book delivers. Their family grew, their crew grew, and Kristin tells the story of their hardships with grace, humor and honesty. I'm rooting for them."" -Andrea Bemis, author of Dishing Up the Dirt"

Kimball writes in vivid but unsentimental language, equal parts dirt and poetry. --Burlington Free Press As Kimball chronicles that first year in supple prose, the farm takes on vivid form, with the frustrations balancing the satisfactions and the dark complementing the light. Throughout the book, the author ably describes the various trials and tribulations involved... A hearty, chromatic account of a meaningful accomplishment in farming. --Kirkus Reviews Kimball is a graceful, luminous writer with an eye for detail... How lucky we are to be able to step into that world with no sweat. I wished for a hundred pages more. --Minneapolis Star Tribune In her beguiling memoir, Kimball describes the complex truth about the simple life in prose that is observant and lyrical, yet tempered by a farmer's lack of sentimentality. --Elle Magazine The Dirty Life is a wonderfully told tale of one of the most interesting farms in the country. If you want to understand the heart and soul of the new/old movement towards local food, this is the book you need. It's the voice of what comes next in this land, of the generation unleashed by Wendell Berry to do something really grand. --Bill McKibben, author Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet The Dirty Life is a delightful, tumultuous, and tender story of the author's love affair with the man who becomes her husband and the farm they work together to restore. With wisdom and humor, Kristin Kimball describes how she abandoned her career in New York City, leaving behind everything she thought was important for a hard, distinctly unglamorous existence that turns out to be the most fulfilling thing she's ever done. --Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle

Author Information

Kristin Kimball is a farmer and a writer living in northern New York. Prior to farming, Kimball worked as a freelance writer, writing teacher, and as an assistant to a literary agent in New York City. A graduate of Harvard University and the author of The Dirty Life and Good Husbandry, she and her husband Mark have run Essex Farm since 2003, where they live with their two daughters.

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