Holding The Lines
Farmer's daughter Maureen agreed completely with her mother's admonition: Never marry a farmer. Her marriage to a science geek with a good job meant a house on a lake and clean hands-until the farmer hidden inside him started scrabbling to escape. What began as a willingness to put up with his buying a tractor and renting a field becomes an all- encompassing endeavor to learn how to drive, raise, train, and work draft horses, grow and sell their crops, care for the land they had learned to love, maintain a sense of humor, and keep themselves and their children safe in the face of runaway teams, straight-line winds, and sub-zero temperatures. Holding the Lines is the story of a very ordinary woman's decision to find meaning in horses, hard work, love, and potatoes.
Copyright 2023, softcover, 250 pages, SKU 7795.
Customer Reviews
United StatesI was moved by her well written, warm-hearted description of how the desire for farm life and conservation of nature become reality and the life that define her and her family.
Reading “Holding the Lines” by Maureen Ash, a history of her organic farm, I was moved by her well written, warm-hearted description of how the desire for farm life and conservation of nature become reality and the life that define her and her family. Working with horses, training, breeding them, doesn´t only mean a lot of work but also a very emotional approach to work on a farm. The relationships the whole family develop with the animals and their different characters are so vividly told that you can feel the joy e.g. with every successful birth and the sorrow of the loss of a beloved animal friend to the family as well as the impact this way of life has on the education of her children. “Holding the Lines” is a wonderful journey into the dedicated endeavor of a woman committed to her family, her environment and her society. Maureen Ash was not only able to work very hard for her dream but also has the gift to share her experience thus providing her readers with an amazing, moving, and inspiring story.
United Statesa fellow breeder
I recently completed reading Maureen Ash’s new book “Holding the Lines.” Although I cannot boast any literary authority, this book should be on the coffee table of every Suffolk breeder and in the curriculum list of anyone mentoring new teamsters. “Holding the Lines” is neither a how- to- book nor is it an attempt at some mystical utopic “culture.” Maureen writes from where the tire meets the track, sharing her day to day, rekindling those “ah” moments you have experienced with your horse. I laughed, I sighed, I even cried. Maureen, along with her husband Rich Purdy, show us there is a place for blending draft power and corporate duty. “Holding the Lines” gives us permission to passionately seek improvement in our lifestyle, the breed, and the community in which we live.
United StatesReview: Rural Heritage Magazine
Before she worked as a teacher in a Minnesota junior high school, Maureen Ash was a magazine editor — and the skills she developed in that career are on full display in her new book, Holding the Lines. I dare you to open this book to any page and not be affected by the words there. More than a master storyteller, Maureen is a wordsmith — the kind of writer I’d always wished I could become but never did. The book chronicles the journey Maureen and her husband, Rich Purdy, took with their (then) young family as they elected to first, move to the Wisconsin countryside and then, to learn to farm using Suffolk Punch draft horses as their principle power source. Suffolk breeder Brad Busch sums up the book's impact in a review on the publisher's page: “I recently completed reading Maureen Ash’s new book Holding the Lines. Although I cannot boast any literary authority, this book should be on the coffee table of every Suffolk breeder and in the curriculum list of anyone mentoring new teamsters. Holding the Lines is neither a how- to- book nor is it an attempt at some mystical utopic ‘culture.’ Maureen writes from where the tire meets the track, sharing her day to day, rekindling those ‘ah’ moments you have experienced with your horse. I laughed, I sighed, I even cried. Maureen, along with her husband Rich Purdy, show us there is a place for blending draft power and corporate duty. Holding the Lines gives us permission to passionately seek improvement in our lifestyle, the horse, and the community in which we live.” It is an important message and Maureen subtlety, yet powerfully, brings it home. As Brad mentions in his review, it is not a book of instruction. However, it serves as a primer for people interested in farming with horses, showing the reader the joys, sorrows and just hard work involved in that life. If you think you want to use horses to farm, read this book. Maureen puts you there. It also serves as a primer for you writers and writers-to-be out there. Growing up I was taught to “show, don't tell” when writing. In other words, don't “tell” your reader what to think or feel. Instead, “show” them specific examples of what conjures those thoughts and feelings. Maureen does that throughout the book, like when she describes the time she and her daughter buried a foal that had died shortly after being born: “ I say something about how lucky we were to have known her, and how much she’d been loved in her short life — the usual things you say when a baby dies — as if that should ever happen, as if that should ever become something you ever get used to — and Marian says she wishes she could have known her better. Then I shovel the dirt back into the hole and arrange the squash vines to grow across it through the summer. I hug my beautiful daughter. And then we go on with our day. We both grew up on a farm " Because we've begun reducing our book offerings as we deliberately shrink our inventory footprint, we don't offer this book for sale ourselves and have no financial interest in it. That said, I strongly encourage you to buy this book for yourself and gift copies for all of your friends and family. It is that good. Buy the book online at Acres USA for $25 plus shipping at https://bookstore.acresusa.com/. 250 pages, softcover, 5.5 by 8.5 inches. Some photos. 28 color photos. -jm
United StatesHolding the Lines Rocks
Fabulous book. For me it was like reading SteamPunk. An alternate reality filled with machines that seem improbable and animals that I only see through a car window. Maureen’s a good writer and an excellent storyteller.
United States
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