--- product_id: 1459879 title: "The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love" price: "15805CFA" currency: XOF in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.sn/products/1459879-the-dirty-life-a-memoir-of-farming-food-and-love store_origin: SN region: Senegal --- # The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love **Price:** 15805CFA **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love - **How much does it cost?** 15805CFA with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sn](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/1459879-the-dirty-life-a-memoir-of-farming-food-and-love) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description From a “graceful, luminous writer with an eye for detail” ( Minneapolis Star Tribune ), this riveting memoir explores a year on a sustainable farm. When Kristin Kimball left New York City to interview a dynamic young farmer named Mark, her world changed. On an impulse, she shed her city self and started a new farm with him on five hundred acres near Lake Champlain. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of the couple’s first year on Essex Farm, from the cold North Country winter through their harvest-season wedding in the loft of the barn. Kristin and Mark’s plan to grow everything needed to feed a community was an ambitious idea, and a bit romantic. It worked. Every Friday evening, all year round, over a hundred people travel to Essex Farm to pick up their weekly share of the “whole diet”—beef, pork, chicken, milk, eggs, maple syrup, grains, flours, dried beans, herbs, fruits, and forty different vegetables—produced by the farm. In The Dirty Life, Kristin discovers the wrenching pleasures of physical work, learns that good food is at the center of a good life, falls deeply in love, and finally finds the engagement and commitment she craved in the form of a man, a small town, and a beautiful piece of land. Review: A Well-Written Memoir, Heartfelt and True - In "The Dirty Life", author and farmer Kristin Kimball tells a powerful story. Her story of the joys and labors of building a farm with her husband is fascinating and uplifting. It's an endearing story that could have been set in many corners of the world. It's timeless. Kimball glosses over none of the details of building a life and livelihood with soil, rain, sunshine and work. You'll be exhausted just reading about the dawn-to-night labor of two farmers trying to build a life and career together. And, you'll be either queasy or intrigued - or both- by some of the particulars of life and death with farm animals. She shares it all. The author pulls off an amazing bit of writer's magic. In "The Dirty Life", she manages to both romanticize and de-romanticize farming at the same time. I came away from the book moved and envious of the passion, mission and gratification that the farming life has given her and her husband. At the same time I was left absolutely terrified at the thought of ever having to put in the backbreaking and often-unfair work of a farming life. For city-dwellers like me, reading about city slickers turned farmers is part fantasy and part jealousy. She describes a life that any of us could have, but few of us would likely succeed at. Kimball manages to make the farming life seem both accessible and all-but-impossible. Which I suppose it is. Review: Terrific book - I was absolutely fascinated by Ms. Kimball's book. It is a life I dream about and brought to light how difficult farm life truly is. I loved her style of writing and her descriptions had me feeling like I was really there with her getting up at god-awful hours in the freezing cold to take care of the animals. The reason I gave it 4 stars is that while the majority of the book was wonderful, I felt the end was rushed with way too little information. It was like she stuffed four years of living into the last two pages. I just hope she does a follow up book so that I know how it's going now! ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #91,867 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #33 in Mid Atlantic U.S. Biographies #41 in Sociology of Rural Areas #60 in Food Science (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,539 Reviews | ## Images ![The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81ZML7l-6xL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Well-Written Memoir, Heartfelt and True *by J***S on September 4, 2012* In "The Dirty Life", author and farmer Kristin Kimball tells a powerful story. Her story of the joys and labors of building a farm with her husband is fascinating and uplifting. It's an endearing story that could have been set in many corners of the world. It's timeless. Kimball glosses over none of the details of building a life and livelihood with soil, rain, sunshine and work. You'll be exhausted just reading about the dawn-to-night labor of two farmers trying to build a life and career together. And, you'll be either queasy or intrigued - or both- by some of the particulars of life and death with farm animals. She shares it all. The author pulls off an amazing bit of writer's magic. In "The Dirty Life", she manages to both romanticize and de-romanticize farming at the same time. I came away from the book moved and envious of the passion, mission and gratification that the farming life has given her and her husband. At the same time I was left absolutely terrified at the thought of ever having to put in the backbreaking and often-unfair work of a farming life. For city-dwellers like me, reading about city slickers turned farmers is part fantasy and part jealousy. She describes a life that any of us could have, but few of us would likely succeed at. Kimball manages to make the farming life seem both accessible and all-but-impossible. Which I suppose it is. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Terrific book *by L***L on September 4, 2012* I was absolutely fascinated by Ms. Kimball's book. It is a life I dream about and brought to light how difficult farm life truly is. I loved her style of writing and her descriptions had me feeling like I was really there with her getting up at god-awful hours in the freezing cold to take care of the animals. The reason I gave it 4 stars is that while the majority of the book was wonderful, I felt the end was rushed with way too little information. It was like she stuffed four years of living into the last two pages. I just hope she does a follow up book so that I know how it's going now! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Remarkable *by A***R on March 15, 2011* I was not (am not, really) wild about the title of this book. I heard the author on NPR and that was just okay. But I really wanted to read about first generation farmers, and that desire overrode any misgivings. Well, this book exceeded any expectation I had. Within the first few pages, it becomes clear that this is not an ordinary memoir, that this is a memoir by a professional writer who just happened to stumble into some interesting subject matter. Her ability to sketch people, so clearly that suddenly you KNOW them, and to do it in just a few sentences is amazing- in this capacity, Kimball is on par with great fiction writers (Faulkner, Austen, Twain). This is not a flowery book, but it is beautiful. In this way, it reminds me of the Little House books- unsentimental prose that is nonetheless compelling, breathtaking. There is a lot in this book, not just the complete upending of the author's life, not just the work, luck, and skill that went into Essex Farm, not just the stories of how farms fail and how farming must be remade. At the heart of this book, there is the story of a marriage. It was told in a quiet way, as if to take a backseat to everything else crammed into the story, but it is deeply intimate. Her love for her husband, both in spite of and because of his eccentricities, is visible in every line, but when she tells of her misgivings and fears of committing to him, it makes this story so full that it isn't just a memoir anymore, it becomes literature. The last line of this book is the best ending note that I have ever read in nonfiction. After the joy of "The Dirty Life", I am certain to a second book by Kristin Kimball, if the public is lucky enough to get another one. I read this book aloud to my husband, and at the end of it, he said he wanted to reread it every year of his life, so I know it's not just me. It's just that good. ## Frequently Bought Together - The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love - Good Husbandry: A Memoir - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Tenth Anniversary Edition: A Year of Food Life --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.sn/products/1459879-the-dirty-life-a-memoir-of-farming-food-and-love](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/1459879-the-dirty-life-a-memoir-of-farming-food-and-love) --- *Product available on Desertcart Senegal* *Store origin: SN* *Last updated: 2026-10-12*