Roxanne Bok, a writer and mother of two, has taken more than a few leaps of faith-metaphorically and physically-during the last decade.

New Yorkers by weekday, she and her husband Scott, an investment banker, purchased the land adjoining their weekend home in Salisbury, on which sat an old, failing horse farm, to protect it from encroaching development.

Within two years the urban couple had re-established a 37-stall working horse farm, transforming not only the land, but also their family in ways they never would have imagined.

In her new memoir, Horsekeeping: One Woman's Tale of Barn and Country Life, Bok recounts her family's grand adventure in beautifully descriptive prose, but also with self-deprecating humor, recalling her trials and tribulations as a novice to the world of horses, hay, and barns, and sharing such earthy delights as how much poop a horse produces in three weeks.

I recently chatted with Bok about her new book and what she and her family learned through this experience.

You express the ambivalence many of us feel-that yearning to get back to nature, to the land, to unplug. But so few of us are willing or able to take that plunge. Why do you think that is?

Some people may realize more than I do that maintaining the dream is better than the reality. Once you go and indulge your dream, it's no longer a dream, it's achieved, and some of the magic comes off. But hopefully, if you do indulge, you have experiences you don't expect, like, when you're working with animals, a closer connection with nature…that [can be] dangerous as well as wonderful.

This was clearly a daunting prospect, restoring a horse farm, with your limited experience. But you seemed to know before you did it that it would be great for your kids. You romanticized: "Our kids would grow up kind and well adjusted and not addicted to Xbox and Barbie." How did you know that?

I guess I had bought into that whole theory that kids thrive in nature. Get them up off the coach, they shouldn't watch endless TV, they should be out getting exercise, enjoying the world around them. I grew up in a New Jersey suburb and watched a lot of TV. It was a densely populated area, but across the street was a patch of woods. Having that nature there got under my skin a bit. My mother was a literature person, into the whole pastoral nature thing. She always loved animals. It made me crazy, the idea of my kids sitting on a coach. It's rather extreme, some people would say; I could have thrown out the TV. It would have been a lot easier and less expensive [than buying a horse farm].

Your son Elliot is now 16 and your daughter Jane is 11. What did this experience do for them, for your family, that you didn't expect?

I knew we'd be around large, dangerous animals that would need lots of care and it wasn't all fun-a big responsibility. I expected my kids [would develop] a work ethic. What I didn't expect was the fear and the risk. I've fallen off; my daughter and son have fallen off. I hit the panic button every time it happens. Is it okay to take the risk for myself as a parent...and then to think about my kids taking this risk, which is a totally unnecessary risk, right? But, so is skiing and getting on a highway.

My kids are pretty active and willing to try new things. My daughter even said to me, 'It's so great, Mom, that I have to spend my week with 6th-grade girls and then on weekends I get to spend time with people on the farm who are all ages.' The farm as a family was not something I would have foreseen. Everyone has something to teach each other. It's not me teaching her from a book; it's experiential. I hear she's a wonderful worker. It's pretty astonishing. My son also had wonderful experiences there (he's at boarding school now) and understands what farm life and nature is about. He fully gets it.

Your mother died when you were so young-eight. How did that shape your own parenting?

I think it's huge-what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Our time in this life is short; it's better to live it for all you can. If I weren't waiting for the next thing to fall out of the sky, would I have taken on a horse farm? Forging ahead with this project has shown my kids that they should do the same. I hope just by my example of taking a risk, doing something you are totally ill equipped to do, like this horse farm, shows you can take a chance and do something new-even at 46 years old.

What can horses teach us about the big stuff like facing our fears and getting back in the saddle?

You do learn when you come off that it's the scariest thing in the world to get back on. Some people do and some people never do. It teaches you to work through relationships. It takes years of perseverance and working out a relationship with each individual horse-each horse is different. It's a non-verbal connection in every way...It forces you to test and plumb and hone your other senses and ways of communicating. I think it makes you better with people, too. There's a lot of synergy with this in yoga, which I do. It helps you get in touch with yourself and every other breathing creature you come in contact with.

In the book, when your husband's young business associates came up from the city, you comment, "Scott and I enjoyed merging these two worlds, horsekeeping and financial dealing…It prompted us to imagine what our own children might achieve, be it in a high rise or a barn. What did you mean?

I learned whatever my kids do, if you do it with dedication it can be as rewarding and skillful as any high-profile job. In my previous life I would have seen a vast social difference [between] a banker or stable girl. Now I have as much respect for our stable workers as I have for financial big wigs in New York City. Every day they take risks and face their fears head on. It's one of greatest things you can do.

Horsekeeping by Roxanne Bok (Twin Lakes Press), hardcover, is $25. Bok will give a talk and booksigning at R.J. Julia Booksellers, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, on Thursday, Nov. 17 at 1 p.m. Tickets are $5; contact 203-245-3959 or books@rjjulia.com or visit www.rjjulia.com. Proceeds from book sales will be donated to horse-rescue charities.

Amy J. Barry lives and writes in Stony Creek. Email her at aimwrite@snet.net.