Foto dell'autore
3 opere 105 membri 32 recensioni

Sull'Autore

Antonia Murphy is a psychotherapist and supervisor with over twenty-five years of clinical experience in the NHS, the third sector, and private practice. As well as her clinical work, Antonia managed the primary care counselling service in Derbyshire from 1998-2006, and was a founding director of mostra altro CPC. Antonia works in private practice in Nottingham. mostra meno

Opere di Antonia Murphy

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Sesso
female

Utenti

Recensioni

Meet Antonia and Peter, a couple who move from America to New Zealand and end up becoming farmers of a sort. This is the story of how this couple traveled to New Zealand in a sail boat, how they started a family and then became hobby farmers. The hobby farm grew one animal at a time as their family constantly fell in love with the idea of a new animal to add to their growing herd. Not for the faint of heart, Antonia dishes on all the dirty details involved with raising different types of animals, and what makes her enjoy the work still. Antonia's accounts of her first year of learning to farm various types of animals are honestly hilarious! Some pages had me laughing so hard that I would start to cry! Don't think this is a humor book though. She experiences some very wonderful people who help them along the way and has hard times just like all of us do. These stories will have you grabbing the tissues and pulling at your heartstrings. I have no desire to farm myself, however, the story of their family and farm is so very charming, funny, and endearing in our digital age.

Ashley C. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

… (altro)
 
Segnalato
mcpl.wausau | 31 altre recensioni | Sep 25, 2017 |
I received this book as a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

In recent years when my dad was dying or when my daughter was in the hospital, I switched from reading my usual fare to things like [b:Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese|5975656|Goat Song A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese|Brad Kessler|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347457109s/5975656.jpg|6148894] or [b:The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love|7841677|The Dirty Life On Farming, Food, and Love|Kristin Kimball|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1277929135s/7841677.jpg|10935145]. These were lovely books but I read them in part because I was reasonably certain Nothing Bad would Happen to character I'd invested in. (Some might invest themselves in the animals who I knew from the beginning might get eaten so I understand I'm speaking only for myself.) These got me through tough moments by allowing me to escape safely.

Despite the fact that none of my family members are endangered, when Dirty Chick arrived I started reading it right away. While it has some elements in common with the other books about "city folk" who gave up the urban life to go farm in the middle of nowhere with little or no experience, Antonia Murphy was clearly always an adventure waiting to happen and it shows in this work from the beginning. The prologue is a meditation on watching a goat eat her placenta (the goat's, not Murphy's) and then moves briskly into the incident which Murphy believes will keep her from ever owning an animal again: while Murphy is house sitting for her father and stepmother, one of their chickens is sexually assaulted by their duck and dies as a result.

And the pace picks up from there. She and her husband, houseboat dwellers in the San Francisco area, end up sailing across the ocean to New Zealand where they end up farming a variety of animals including alpacas, chickens, goats and sheep with all the chaos that implies. They also raise their two children: Silas, who turns up with a developmental delay, and Miranda, who is as verbal as her brother is not and can be counted upon to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the right time, and make a place for themselves in the community.

There is "language" as they say and she does not hold back on describing the maladies that can befall livestock, most involving their bottoms, so that might not be for the faint of heart. This was a quick read and I enjoyed all of it.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
CydMelcher | 31 altre recensioni | Feb 5, 2016 |
I received this book as a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

In recent years when my dad was dying or when my daughter was in the hospital, I switched from reading my usual fare to things like [b:Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese|5975656|Goat Song A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese|Brad Kessler|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347457109s/5975656.jpg|6148894] or [b:The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love|7841677|The Dirty Life On Farming, Food, and Love|Kristin Kimball|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1277929135s/7841677.jpg|10935145]. These were lovely books but I read them in part because I was reasonably certain Nothing Bad would Happen to character I'd invested in. (Some might invest themselves in the animals who I knew from the beginning might get eaten so I understand I'm speaking only for myself.) These got me through tough moments by allowing me to escape safely.

Despite the fact that none of my family members are endangered, when Dirty Chick arrived I started reading it right away. While it has some elements in common with the other books about "city folk" who gave up the urban life to go farm in the middle of nowhere with little or no experience, Antonia Murphy was clearly always an adventure waiting to happen and it shows in this work from the beginning. The prologue is a meditation on watching a goat eat her placenta (the goat's, not Murphy's) and then moves briskly into the incident which Murphy believes will keep her from ever owning an animal again: while Murphy is house sitting for her father and stepmother, one of their chickens is sexually assaulted by their duck and dies as a result.

And the pace picks up from there. She and her husband, houseboat dwellers in the San Francisco area, end up sailing across the ocean to New Zealand where they end up farming a variety of animals including alpacas, chickens, goats and sheep with all the chaos that implies. They also raise their two children: Silas, who turns up with a developmental delay, and Miranda, who is as verbal as her brother is not and can be counted upon to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the right time, and make a place for themselves in the community.

There is "language" as they say and she does not hold back on describing the maladies that can befall livestock, most involving their bottoms, so that might not be for the faint of heart. This was a quick read and I enjoyed all of it.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
CydMelcher | 31 altre recensioni | Feb 5, 2016 |
I received this book as a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

In recent years when my dad was dying or when my daughter was in the hospital, I switched from reading my usual fare to things like [b:Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese|5975656|Goat Song A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese|Brad Kessler|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347457109s/5975656.jpg|6148894] or [b:The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love|7841677|The Dirty Life On Farming, Food, and Love|Kristin Kimball|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1277929135s/7841677.jpg|10935145]. These were lovely books but I read them in part because I was reasonably certain Nothing Bad would Happen to character I'd invested in. (Some might invest themselves in the animals who I knew from the beginning might get eaten so I understand I'm speaking only for myself.) These got me through tough moments by allowing me to escape safely.

Despite the fact that none of my family members are endangered, when Dirty Chick arrived I started reading it right away. While it has some elements in common with the other books about "city folk" who gave up the urban life to go farm in the middle of nowhere with little or no experience, Antonia Murphy was clearly always an adventure waiting to happen and it shows in this work from the beginning. The prologue is a meditation on watching a goat eat her placenta (the goat's, not Murphy's) and then moves briskly into the incident which Murphy believes will keep her from ever owning an animal again: while Murphy is house sitting for her father and stepmother, one of their chickens is sexually assaulted by their duck and dies as a result.

And the pace picks up from there. She and her husband, houseboat dwellers in the San Francisco area, end up sailing across the ocean to New Zealand where they end up farming a variety of animals including alpacas, chickens, goats and sheep with all the chaos that implies. They also raise their two children: Silas, who turns up with a developmental delay, and Miranda, who is as verbal as her brother is not and can be counted upon to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the right time, and make a place for themselves in the community.

There is "language" as they say and she does not hold back on describing the maladies that can befall livestock, most involving their bottoms, so that might not be for the faint of heart. This was a quick read and I enjoyed all of it.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
CydMelcher | 31 altre recensioni | Feb 5, 2016 |

Statistiche

Opere
3
Utenti
105
Popolarità
#183,191
Voto
4.1
Recensioni
32
ISBN
10

Grafici & Tabelle