Chicken Justice

Country Living welcomes back Steven Coffman's celebrated collection of essays about life on the farm. Hailed by Library Journal as "amusing, exuberant, and poignant," it now includes three entirely new and thoroughly delightful articles to enjoy.

"Our first country spring was in mid-renaissance. Everywhere life was bourgeoning! First had come the early-returning flocks of robins and red-winged blackbirds...Then antediluvian opossums wobbling out of time-warp hibernation, groundhogs popping up on roadsides like chubby heralds...an explosion of baby bunnies."

What happens when two hippies with virtually no knowledge of country life decide to set up house on a 129-acre farm in Upstate New York? That's what Steven Coffman and his wife Bobbie did in the late summer of 1972, and in Back to the Farm he tells the whole story of their grand undertaking with great humor, pathos, and wit. It's all about the many animals—pigs, ducks, cows, horses, cats, dogs, and other country creatures—who share their lives, as well as about learning the ways of the land, getting in tune with nature's cycles, and raising a family. Coffman, who will become a Country Living columnist this year, centers his pieces around the animals that make up his new rural world, capturing the stubborn recalcitrance of a pig, the pony that steps into the living room, and the magical migration of magnificent Monarch butterflies.

"...a lively, zany tale of country life..."—Bookwatch.

"Bemused, informative and breezy...will give a nudge to those who only dream of escaping the urban life."—Publishers Weekly.