Klinkenborg, who teaches at Yale and Pomona and who writes an occasional editorial page column on rural living, writes beautifully and lyrically in this collection of essays about 11 years on his upstate New York farm.  Structured as a diary with irregular entries for dates across the seasons in each year, the author takes us from his New York farm to his grandparents’ Iowa farm of his boyhood, his Wyoming horse farm, and the California town where his family moved in the early ‘60’s.  His best writing, however, comes forth in his descriptions of nature, the farm animals, his chores, and the land in NY.  He is less effective when addressing the serious subjects of climate change, industrial farming, monoculture and other issues in an Interlude; on the other hand, the Coda in which he steps back to discuss the immensity of stellar time is quite well done. This is a beautiful collection of occasional essays about one man’s relationship to nature.  The nearly complete lack of personal details (e.g. we learn of his divorce in a one line throw off, and the same about his childlessness) is a bit jarring, but probably effective in keeping the focus on the farm, the animals, nature, weather, and the gap between one man and his lifespan and the natural world.  Eager for his next volume.