"I am a beekeeper, but I am also a writer, and some years ago I sat down at a typewriter to experiment with words, to try to tease out of the amorphous, chaotic and worldess part of myself the reason why I was staying on this hilltop in the Ozarks." Why indeed? For Sue Hubbell, a former college librarian who moved to the country, found she spent much of her time digging manure out of the barn or trying to fix the rear end of the truck -- that is, in addition to the hay making, corn planting, bee swarming, vegetable gardening, tick picking, log splitting, chick hatching, truck towing, and snake alerts that overwhelmed her early days in her new home. These essays from down on her Missouri farm are alight with mischief, poking gentle fun at city snobs, Ozark men, and Hubbell's own experience as an apprentice Ozarker. They also chart the first forays Hubbell made into writing. As she says herself, "They were the beginning of a writing life. One of several I have lived." "A beautifully blossoming writer . . . Hubbell watches language as sagaciously as she eyes nature." -- Washington Post Book World