UpCountry

Kimber shares his adventures, misadventures, and reflections as a part-time farmer and fetcher of firewood, his struggles with recalcitrant sheep and aging tractors, the joys of roaming the hills with his dog, plunking for pickerel in the lily pads, savoring the echoes of silence in a sleeping Maine village. Like a good apple pie, these essays are a blend of the sweet and the tart, the aromatic and the astringent, seasoned with a dash of wit and self irony, these love letters to life upcountry are as crisp, fresh, and bracing as they are affectionate.

Kimber shares his adventures, misadventures, and reflections as a part-time farmer and fetcher of firewood, his struggles with recalcitrant sheep and aging tractors, the joys of roaming the hills with his dog, plunking for pickerel in the lily pads, savoring the echoes of silence in a sleeping Maine village. Like a good apple pie, these essays are a blend of the sweet and the tart, the aromatic and the astringent, seasoned with a dash of wit and self irony, these love letters to life upcountry are as crisp, fresh, and bracing as they are affectionate.

Publishers Weekly

The essays collected here, most of which first appeared in New England magazines, tell of Kimber's life on an old farm in Temple, Maine, where he and his wife, both former university teachers, settled 20 years ago. His subjects are simple country pleasures: the paucity of nocturnal social life, the amusing contrariness of his flock of sheep, the elegance of cross-country skiing, the deliciousness of homemade doughnuts, the joy of afternoon dips at the local pond. Kimber's style is lively and imaginative; place names like Tumbledown Mountain, Ironbound Pond and Debsconeag Deadwater seem magical as he describes hiking and fishing expeditions. Some of the essays are funny, others are poignant; all are imbued with fresh insights. (Sept.)