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Guests | October 20, 2009

Vincent McCaffrey: IMG A Practical Matter

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It was in a letter of 1897, about his cousin James Ross Clemens, that Mark Twain famously noted that "the report of my death was an exaggeration." He... Continue »
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Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn

by Catherine Friend

Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Farms have fences. People have boundaries. Mine began crumbling the day I knelt behind a male sheep, reached between his legs, and squeezed his testicles. This took place one blustery November day when I joined other shepherd-wannabees for a class on the basics of raising sheep. I was there with my partner Melissa, the woman I'd lived with for twelve years, because we were going to start a farm.

When self-confessed "urban bookworm" Catherine Friend's partner of twelve years decides she wants to fulfill her lifelong dream of owning a farm, Catherine agrees. What ensues is a crash course in both living off and with the land that ultimately allows Catherine to help fulfill Melissa's dreams while not losing sight of her own.

Hit by a Farm is a hilarious recounting of Catherine and Melissa's trials of "getting back to the land." It is also a coming-of (middle)-age story of a woman trying to cross the divide between who she is and who she wants to be, and the story of a couple who say "goodbye city life" — and learn more than they ever bargained for about love, land, and yes, sheep sex.

Review:

"Catherine Friend knows how to get our attention. Her charming memoir begins with her tentative reach between the legs of a male sheep, the better to squeeze his 16-inch circumference testicles. She's cold, there's a suspiciously soft substance on the bottom of her sneakers and she has never really hankered to know what a healthy ram testicle feels like." New York Times

Review:

"Hit by a Farm is larded with pain, laughter and enjoyable rural trivia....[H]heartening, sweet, earthy, funny — a joy to read from start to finish." Minneapolis Star Tribune

Review:

"[An] honest look at collaboration and compromise, the pain and the joy of partnership, and the hands-on of farming." Booklist
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About the Author

Catherine Friend lives on a farm with her partner in Minnesota. A children's book author, Friend is also at work on an adult novel.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Jane Churchon, May 24, 2008 (view all comments by Jane Churchon)
The worst part of this book is that it ends. I'm not a farmer, nor will I ever be interested in becoming one, but this book is about far more than farming.

Friend manages to convey the lessons of relationship--with her partner, with their animals, with their property, and most importantly, with herself--in a way that is at once humorous and insightful. Nothing gets tied up with a neat little bow, but the book also manages to neglect the angst-filled memoir genre. She combines the humor of David Sedaris and Bill Bryson with the poignancy of Mitch Ablom, while skipping sentimentality and predictability along the way.

Hit By A Farm manages to weave her thematic concern--boundaries and how they can be formed in the context of partnership and self fulfillment--throughout the book without clobbering the reader with her message. Best of all, this book is shake the bed and wake up your partner funny. It's hard to make a reader cry--but it's a gift to make a reader laugh.

I'm recommending this book to everyone I know, and now, through the magic of the world wide interweb, I can recommend it to people I don't know. After you've finished reading it, don't forget to tell Oprah. She'll thank you for it.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781569242988
Subtitle:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn
Author:
Friend, Catherine
Publisher:
Marlowe & Company
Subject:
Women
Subject:
Farm life
Subject:
Minnesota
Subject:
Farmers & Ranchers
Subject:
Topic - Relationships
Subject:
Personal Memoirs
Subject:
HUM012000
Subject:
HUMOR / Topic/Relationships
Edition Description:
Trade Paper
Publication Date:
March 2006
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
240
Dimensions:
804x666x71 50
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