Good Husbandry, Growing A Family On A Community Farm, reviewed

Review of Good Husbandry, Growing A Family On A Community Farm, available to buy from Granta here.

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.

Good Husbandry, Growing A Family On A Community Farm, reviewed

This book rolls along from the plausible but life changing event of the author, Kristin Kimball setting out to interview a farmer and being hit by that lightning bolt of attraction. From there she ultimately ends up marrying him, embracing his lifestyle and becoming a working farm person, mother, wife and everything else that is thrown at her. It is an honest and unsentimental portrayal of what country life is like in the early 21st century.

Kimball remains honest and forthright throughout the narrative. Though after some, so it seemed to us, slightly ominous foreshadowing nothing quite as bad comes to pass as you might have been lead to believe.

Naturally this also becomes a bit of a relief as you come to like and appreciate the principal characters, herself and her husband. He does survive a couple of serious injuries and a period of related depression too. Both injuries come from recreational activities too, winter skiing and playing ultimate frisbee (a wonderful sport, but perhaps best played by the young and lithe if you really on your body for your daily labour).

The author dispassionately describes the ups and downs of farming life. Or rather the small moments of success and sunlight that keep you holding on through all the setbacks and challenges along the way. Kimball feels though that perhaps, even though the hours are long and all consuming, maybe it is better to be wholely consumed by something difficult rather than have a life less lived.

It all makes for an enjoyable and insightful read, even if not necessarily one to inspire you to run out and do the same as them. Not so much ‘the good life’ as a good life if you understand the challenges, and are willing and able to work hard and embrace it all.

"I just wish everybody had the experience of getting their hands in the dirt," Kristin Kimball tells @npratc.
"Seeing what a miracle it is to pull food out of the ground and then to cook it and eat it with other people." https://t.co/0Aie3cRsK3
— NPR (@NPR) November 28, 2019

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