《我的耕食生活》

    This book is a memoir* by Kristin Kimball about her first year as a farmer on a very labor-intensive* organic* farm in Essex, New York, the United States.

    It will help readers understand how hard and rewarding* running a farm and producing food can be. Her farm’s model is to go beyond traditional CSA (community supported agriculture) and offer its 150 shareholders* food all year long.

    Not just vegetables. They raise pigs, beef cattle*, and chickens; run a dairy* for fresh milk, butter* and cheese*; tap a sugar bush for maple syrup* and orchards* for fresh fruit. They also offer grains*, flour and dried beans and can up tomatoes and other vegetables in the fall.

    The book opens with a beautiful passage from the present time as Kimball’s husband cooks dinner for them after a long day on the farm. Most of the book is about how they met and struggled through their first year on the farm.

    The Kimballs do much of their work without the help of modern machinery, not to mention* chemical herbicides* and fertilizers*.

    The description of how an organic farm stays ahead of weeds will open your eyes.

    The book is interesting because it is about changes on many levels. A seed becomes food, a derelict* farm becomes a functional working operation, a city girl discovers she is a farmer, two people find out how to do all this together and become a married couple. This is also a book about the rewards of very hard work and what it means to be passionate* about something and completely devoted to it.

    (SD-Agencies)