Synopses & Reviews
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
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.