Horsekeeping: One Woman's Tale of Barn and Country Life

Horsekeeping: One Woman's Tale of Barn and Country Life by Bok, Roxanne. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781935212522.

Why would successful urbanites, used to clean, controlled and orderly lives, take on the task of restoring a near collapsing empty barn littered with haphazard and decayed fencing, pastures deep in standing water, and try to turn it into a thriving horse farm? Initially motivated only by a city dweller’s fantasy and obscure memories of childhood visits to the country, Roxanne Bok oversees the reconstruction of a thirty-seven stall barn and painstakingly discovers something about both large animals and running a small business. Follow an equine novice as she leads her equally naïve family in an eighteenmonth long adventure of breathing life back into a once great horse farm in rural New England. A thoughtfully detailed memoir, Roxanne Bok learns it all the hard way, from the agony of repeatedly being tossed off a beloved horse, to the thrill of winning a blue ribbon. For those who love horses, the dream of country life or simply the sight of an otherwise urban family on great rural adventure, here is a tale that plumbs the full range of human emotions but ends with a deepened love of the land and the extraordinary equine creatures that inhabit it. Proceeds from book sales will be donated to support horse rescue charities.