title: Stronger Than Dirt: How One Urban Couple Grew a Business, a Family, and a New Way of Life from the Ground Up
author: Kim Schaye
description: In 1995, lured by a friend's enthusiasm for the pleasures of market gardening and his tales of the money to be made selling produce at greenmarkets, the authors, who lived in Brooklyn, decided to buy 30 acres of land in upstate New York. Schaye, who was an editorial writer for the New York Daily News, got herself reassigned as a reporter in the paper's Albany bureau so she could be close to the farm, and Losee gave up his failing construction business. In lively alternating essays, husband and wife tell the story of their venture. He recounts the details of building a house, tilling the land, constructing a deer fence; she, bemused at her husband's grandiose plans and his unfailing confidence, goes along with everything, including spending the first winter with thousands of tomato and pepper seedlings growing in the bedroom of their temporary apartment in Albany. Increasingly dissatisfied with her job covering the static New York State government, Schaye finally gave it up and entered wholeheartedly into farm work. After the first summer, they sold their house in Brooklyn, took part-time jobs, and through backbreaking labor, made their farm work. Now they have a successful business selling flowers and fresh produce at greenmarkets. Without playing down the hardships of the endeavor-though they're vague about financial details-the authors have written an engaging and unfailingly optimistic book. 16 b&amp;w photos. <br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: > > Street Cultivation #3
  
  Version 1.0
  
  © 2020 Sarah Lin
  
  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or
  used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
  publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
  
  > > The story so far...
  
  Street Cultivation 1
  
  In the modern world, qi is money. Problem is, Rick doesn't have much of either
  to spare. Between his dead-end job taking punches at the local lucrim combat
  gym and paying for his sick sister Melissa's school fees, it's a struggle to
  make ends meet. On top of that, Melissa suffers from a condition that drains
  her lucrim and threatens her life.
  
  When a group of rich young men with powerful Birthright Cores decide to cause
  trouble at the gym, Rick knows he should just accept the inevitable beating,
  but his pride gets the better of him and he stubbornly fights back as best he
  can. Eventually, Rick’s boss steps in to call off the fight, and Rick manages
  to stay on his 