eveningsout

A relaxing haven in the country? Not on this farm

Hit by a Farm

by Catherine Friend

Marlowe & Co., $14.95 paperback Reviewed by Terri Schlichenmeyer

People in love do pretty strange things. Case in point: the fictional Cyrano de Bergerac, who helped another man win the heart of the lovely Roxane.

Case in point: Vincent Van Gogh, who snipped off his ear and sent it to the woman he admired.

Case in point: author Catherine Friend, whotemporarily gave up her writing career and followed the dream of her partner, Melissa. In the new book Hit by a Farm, you'll see that for Friend, following love wastemporarily a bad idea.

For most of her childhood, Catherine Friend was happy being a bookworm. She was perfectly content to spend her summers inside reading, instead of outside doing anything else. Friend had

a successful career as a writer and a writing teacher, and she loved her work. So when she fell in love with Melissa, who was the active, outdoorsy type, Friend

The two found a 53-acre plot near a small town in Minnesota, where they built a house for themselves and their three dogs. They built a barn. They added 50 ewes and two rams. A hundred chickens soon lived in portable pens, and a few laying hens and two roosters roamed the grounds. Two goats moved in, followed by a mama goat, a llama, ducks and geese. To make the farm sustainable, the two women planned a grape arbor and tried their hand at organic gardening.

ARERISOS KEILLOS

But the farm was hardly peaceful. Friend

hit by a farm

should've seen trouble coming.

catherine friend

Years into their relationship, wistfully and out of the blue, Melissa told Friend that she wanted to buy a farm. A farm with a real barn. And a few sheep. Maybe a cow or two, a couple of chickens.

And a tractor.

Not much. Just a little spread of land where they could watch the animals graze. A place to relax, quietly watching the sunset. It would be a haven of peace.

It would almost mean the end of their

relationship.

says that she and Melissa fought nearly constantly. Beloved animals died, nature was violent and unforgiving, crops didn't grow as expected, and it was easy to blame one another for everything that went wrong. Melissa seemed angry all the time. And the former bookworm who loved to write and teach had lost herself somewhere in the feathers, the wool, the manure and the barn out back.

Alternating between humor and sad befuddlement, Hit by a Farm is going to make city folks chuckle and seasoned farmers laugh out loud. Author Catherine Friend isn't afraid to poke fun at herself and her bookishness, and she's perfectly willing to let readers peek into her personal life a bit. Despite that, there's lots of angst involved in Friend's tale, but the subtitle-How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn-should reassure readers that there really is a happy ending.

Those who have ever lived on a farm or wondered if genteel country life was possible for them, pick up a copy of Hit by a Farm. For dyed-in-the-wool farmers or farmerwannabes, it's also a great book.

May 5, 2006

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