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.