Raised in San Francisco but never staying anywhere for long, journalist and author Antonia Murphy finally settled in New Zealand on a farm that supplies her with a veritable gold mine of all the latest dirt. In DIRTY CHICK, she digs in with both hands and comes out with nuggets of humor, proof of her gifts as a writer, a mom and a sort-of farmer.

With a style that hits high on the laugh meter on every page, and a view of farm life that makes you almost wish you could join her just to test her hyperboles, Murphy’s book begs comparison with THE EGG AND I by Betty MacDonald, another reluctant female farmer/author who garnered wide success with her bucolic yarns a generation ago.

"With a style that hits high on the laugh meter on every page, and a view of farm life that makes you almost wish you could join her just to test her hyperboles, Murphy’s book begs comparison with THE EGG AND I by Betty MacDonald..."

In the early 2000s, Murphy and her husband, Peter, became “unnerved by the wartime zeal in our country.” Added to this was the fact that “for Peter, the ocean was a sanctuary.” Hence a sailboat trip to New Zealand: after all, they would at least be able to speak the language, and Peter could always make a living in IT. Then came the children. Silas, the firstborn, had special needs, and with an ironic frankness that many parents may appreciate, the author declares that, for her anyway, “it’s easier to think of Silas as a perfect little alien with different social norms.” Miranda, the younger child, was normal, meaning fully capable of making plenty of mischief. The family of four was destined, they believed, for country life: natural foods, fluffy animals, lovely sunsets, all the blessings of a dirt-based existence.

Except, of course, that nothing is ever quite as imagined, and in the imagination of Murphy, nothing is safe from her well-aimed barbs of satirical humor. The rapacious duck with a lust for chickens, the purple alpacas who looked so fuzzily adorable from a distance but spit green slime when approached, a faithful dog who attacked the chickens, the hens with leprosy, and the goat with the lovely name of Pearl who was infested with “vampire worms” are all part of the entourage. At one point Murphy went lamb-mad, carrying and cuddling fleecy little Ba, who was “cute like a baby, but unlike my own children, it didn’t whine or annoy me.” The love affair with Ba ended when she got a lesson from an experienced farmer on sheep scatology. Indeed, much of Murphy’s homesteading education revolved around the sexual and toileting needs of livestock. The family’s housing situation was a minus, with cramped quarters and lack of utilities seeming to be the norm.

The good points about their life down under included the small, tolerance-laced school where Silas could be accepted for his talents, not set apart for his disabilities. And there were neighbors who immediately welcomed the outlanders and with whom they soon bonded, immersing themselves in the local culture with its joys and sorrows. In the end, their new friends helped them find the local farm of their dreams, with “electricity that comes out of the walls.” The couple is able to enjoy sunset evenings on the patio at last, with the only complaint being that the new spread is so big that they can’t watch all the animals at once.

Rumors are that they may start a worm farm. Seriously.