Farming in the funnies

The Bucolic Plague: 

How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir

by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Be prepared for things to get a little grim.  I don't mean animals dying, other than flies.  I only mean the stress that two wonderful people can suffer over when the economy crashes and they can't afford to live their dream. Can the dream survive?

The cover tells the story--two urban gentleman fall in love with Beekman Mansion and try their hands at part-time farming.  Farming sort of works for a while, then one is laid off from his job at a media company and the other is having to lay off people himself while he works round the clock to try to bring new clients into his advertising agency. The market for their farm's top product, soap, dries up faster than the Rio Grande.

The writing in this part is absolutely heartbreaking. And the rest of the writing is just plain good--funny and honest and about as riveting as a story of goats and heirloom tomatoes and fresh-laid eggs can be.  Which, to me, is very much.  Here is a sample--no--yes--no. I can't find one.  I tried flipping through to find a particularly amusing passage and I started reading and couldn't stop.

We're woken up by what sounds like someone performing Wagner's wedding march on Model T car horns. ...rather than the old standard COCK-A-DOODLE-DO, the song stuck in this rooster's head was the classic bridal theme. A few seconds later, he was joined by another rooster greeting the day with "It Had to Be You." They were quickly backed up with choruses of "Papa Don't Preach" and "The Little Drummer Boy." Our farm sounded like a bad cover band.

So, first half funny. Second half honest. Whole thing?  Great.