Good Husbandry

Bestselling author Kristin Kimball shares the delicious highs and difficult lows of life on Essex Farm – a 500-acre farm that feeds a community of 250 people.

Farming has its ups and downs, and while the pleasures of good food and nature abound, the Kimballs have encountered challenges – unpredictable weather, injuries, and financial pressures. With two small children to care for, big questions crept in. How does a couple traverse the terrain of a maturing marriage? How can such an agriculturally diverse farm – where they provide meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables, fruits, herbs, grains, pantry staples, fresh flowers, and more for their members – prosper? What do people truly need in order to be happy?

Featuring some of the local characters and cherished animals first introduced in her earlier book The Dirty Life, plus a colorful cast of aspiring farmers who work at the Kimballs' farm to acquire the skills they need to start businesses of their own, Good Husbandry is about friends and neighbors, love and marriage, births and deaths, growth and abundance. 

About the Author

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. Since 2003, she and her husband have run Essex Farm, where they live with their two daughters.

Praise for Good Husbandry

"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 

"An exquisite account...Kimball is a graceful, luminous writer with an eye for detail." - Minneapolis Star Tribune 

"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 toward local food, this is the book you need." -Bill McKibben