{"product_id":"the-dirty-life-on-farming-food-and-love","title":"The Dirty Life: On Farming  Food  and Love","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"This book is the story of the two love affairs that interrupted the trajectory of my life: one with farmingthat dirty  concupiscent artand the other with a complicated and exasperating farmer.\"  Single  thirtysomething  working as a writer in New York City  Kristin Kimball was living life as an adventure. But she was beginning to feel a sense of longing for a family and for home. When she interviewed a dynamic young farmer  her world changed. Kristin knew nothing about growing vegetables  let alone raising pigs and cattle and driving horses. But on an impulse  smitten  if not yet in love  she shed her city self and moved to five hundred acres near Lake Champlain to start a new farm with him. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of their first year on Essex Farm  from the cold North Country winter through the following harvest seasoncomplete with their wedding in the loft of the barn.  Kimball and her husband had a plan: to grow everything needed to feed a community. It was an ambitious idea  a bit romantic  and it worked. Every Friday evening  all year round  a hundred people travel to Essex Farm to pick up their weekly share of the \"whole diet\"beef  pork  chicken  milk  eggs  maple syrup  grains  flours  dried beans  herbs  fruits  and forty different vegetablesproduced by the farm. The work is done by draft horses instead of tractors  and the fertility comes from compost. Kimballs vivid descriptions of landscape  food  cookingand marriageare irresistible.  \"As much as you transform the land by farming \" she writes  \"farming transforms you.\" In her old life  Kimball would stay out until four a.m.  wear heels  and carry a handbag. Now she wakes up at four  wears Carhartts  and carries a pocket knife. At Essex Farm  she discovers the wrenching pleasures of physical work  learns that good food is at the center of a good life  falls deeply in love  and finally finds the engagement and commitment she craved in the form of a man  a small town  and a beautiful piece of land\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946477154357,"sku":"ByrdShop_1416551603","price":26.82,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781416551607_f73c03d5-8035-4f21-85ae-3da52ffe8ed7.jpg?v=1770147947","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-dirty-life-on-farming-food-and-love","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}