Neland ladies get down and dirty with "The Dirty Life"

In the memoir, The Dirty Life, by Kristin Kimball, a young, single Manhattanite journalist interviews an organic farmer, and they fall in love. Somehow she finds herself moving from her SoHo apartment into heavy labor on a farm that uses horses instead of tractors. That transformation is as amazing to her as it is to the reader.

The Neland women had an evening of memories talking about this book. For one thing, we found out that at least three of the dozen or so women there had grown up on farms, and many more had grown up in farm towns or had relatives with farms. I, on the other hand, have basically zero connection to the soil. I did visit a pig farm once in high school, which was a very educational moment for this city girl. This disconnect may be why my garden beans look so poorly, and it may explain a few of the shudders that came over me as I read the book.

Actually I really liked it, and so did the rest of the group. Kristin and, more to the point, her eventual husband Mark, were very ambitious. They decided to begin a new community organic farm that was sustainable and which would provide everything the members needed—milk, eggs, meat, flour, veggies, fruit, etc.  Many of us use or have tried CSA shares of farms. I just have one question--if you have to spend so much time educating people on what to do with kale because they don't really like it, why grow so much of it? But I digress.

We all got tired just reading about farming—milking cows, weeding row upon row of vegetables, tapping the sugar bush. They would fall into bed at the end of long days of work—ew—without energy for a shower.

Alice remembered milking cows every day and the sort of rhythmic comfort that you could take in the routine. She also wondered how it could possibly take 2 hours to milk one cow. Rebecca and I, who have mothered slow nursers, just nodded knowingly.

Those who know about such things talked about the dirt and the smell of a farm, how hard they are to get rid of. They also talked about how good fresh vegetables and milk taste. Some found it hard to change to store-bought milk; others didn’t seem to notice the difference.

Deanna remembered moving onto a farm in late middle school, and going through the same adjustment from city to farm with mixed feelings and completely new experiences.

All of us had some feeling that Mark would be a difficult man to be married to. He seemed very rigid, like things must be the way he envisions them. No one seemed to think they could live for any period of time with a composting toilet in the middle of a shabby apartment.

But, on the other hand, the man could cook. And Kristin could write about cooking. The combination made me think that even I might try a tasty liver. But never—seriously—a cow heart or, ahem, "prairie oysters." Nuh-uh. And Holly pointed out that there are moments where he capitulates to Kristin’s wishes immediately and with no questions asked. They seem perfect for each other.

We laughed about the idealization of her newfound love at the beginning of the book, where she wished that every woman might have the chance to be with a man who has never smoked, gotten drunk, or slept around. That doesn’t seem like such a lofty goal to the many of us who are married to such men.

But for all the laughter, Kimball writes beautifully. She uses lovely metaphors that bring you right into the farm. And the wedding, which seems such a crazy affair, is something I would love to go to someday. Mark has a vision for farming that takes in the sacredness of creation and the relationship of humans to the earth. The book and Kimball's writing made the dirty life seem like something to dream of and strive for, helping us reconnect with some of our agricultural pasts.