Good Husbandry

An evocative and life-enhancing account of running a community farm and raising a family in New York State.

When Kristin Kimball fell in love with a farmer and left behind her life in Manhattan to start a new farm with him in the Adirondacks, she had to learn a lot about farming - and fast. But, it turns out that starting a farm is not as challenging as sustaining it.

Over the next five years, as two children are born and more land is acquired, the farm has its ups and downs, but then the downs keep on coming. Kristin's husband gets injured, the weather turns against them, the financial pressures mount.

Suddenly, Kristin is facing not only the daily juggle of planting and milking and putting dinner on the table, but bigger questions about the life she has chosen. Is she still a farmer or is she now a farmer's wife? What does the farm need in order to survive? What does a family need in order to thrive?

Beautifully written and refreshingly honest, Good Husbandry is about farmers and food, friends and neighbours, love and marriage, birth and death, and about how to grow and harvest the good things in life.

About the Author

Kristin Kimball is a farmer and a writer living in upstate 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, she and her husband Mark have run Essex Farm since 2003, where they live with their daughters, Jane and Miranda.