[00:08.12]dream of starting up their own farm, of living off the land .Few get round to putting their dreams into practice.
[00:17.21]This is perhaps just as well, as the life of a farmer is far from easy, as Jim Doherty discovered
[00:25.73]when he set out to combine being a writer with running a farm. Nevertheless, as he explains,
[00:33.46]he has no regrets and remains enthusiastic about his decision to change his way of life.
[00:41.61]MR.DOHERTY BUILDS HIS DREAM LIFEBy Jim Doherty
[00:48.12]There are two things I have always wanted to do--write and live on a farm. Today I'm doing both.
[00:56.87]I am not in E.B. White's class as a writer or in my neighbors' league as a farmer, but I'm getting by.
[01:05.18]And after years of frustration with city and suburban living,
[01:10.61]my wife Sandy and I have finally found contentment here in the country.
[01:17.27]2 It's a self-reliant sort of life.We grow nearly all of our fruits and vegetables.Our hens keep us in eggs,
[01:27.01]with several dozen left over to sell each week.Our bees provide us with honey,
[01:33.91]and we cut enough wood to just about make it through the heating season.
[01:39.71]3 It's a satisfying life too.In the summer we canoe on the river,go picnicking in the woods
[01:48.25]and take long bicycle rides.In the winter we ski and skate.We get excited about sunsets.
[01:57.60]We love the smell of the earth warming and the sound of cattle lowing.
[02:03.95]We watch for hawks in the sky and deer in the cornfields.
[02:09.52]4 But the good life can get pretty tough.Three months ago when it was 30below,we spent two miserable days
[02:19.55]hauling firewood up the river on a sled.Three months from now,it will be 95 above and we will be cultivating corn,
[02:29.94]weeding strawberries and killing chickens.Recently,Sandy and I had to retile the back roof.
[02:39.37]Soon Jim,16 and Emily,13,the youngest of our four children,
[02:46.61]will help me make some long-overdue improvements on the out-door toilet that supplements our indoor plumbing
[02:55.07]when we are working outside.Later this month,we'll spray the orchard,
[03:01.76]paint the barn,plant the garden and clean the hen house before the new chicks arrive.
[03:09.00]5 In between such chores,I manage to spend 50 to 60 hours a week at the typewriter or doing reporting
[03:17.98]for the freelance articles I sell to magazines and newspapers.Sandy,meanwhile,pursues her own demanding schedule.
[03:27.67]Besides the usual household routine,she oversees the garden and beehives,bakes bread,cans and freezes,
[03:37.16]drives the kids to their music lessons,practices with them,takes organ lessons on her own,does research and typing for me,
[03:46.69]writes an article herself now and then,tends the flower beds,stacks a little wood and delivers the eggs.
[03:55.96]There is,as the old saying goes,no rest for the wicked on a place like this--and not much for the virtuous either.
[04:05.05]6 None of us will ever forget our first winter.We were buried under five feet of snow from December through March.
[04:14.15]While one storm after another blasted huge drifts up against the house and barn,
[04:20.86]we kept warm inside burning our own wood,eating our wen apples and loving every minute of it.
[04:29.19]7 When spring came,it brought two floods.First the river overflowed,covering much of our land for weeks.
[04:38.00]Then the growing season began,swamping us under wave after wave of produce.
[04:44.58]Our freezer filled up with cherries,raspberries,strawberries,asparagus,peas,beans and corn.
[04:54.90]Then our cannedgoods shelves and cupboards began to grow with preserves,tomato juice,grape juice,
[05:04.61]plums,jams and jellies.Eventually,the basement floor disappeared under piles of potatoes,
[05:13.78]squash and pumpkins,and the barn began to fill with apples and pears.It was amazing.
[05:21.15]8 The next year we grew even more food and managed to get through the winter on firewood
[05:28.23]that was mostly from our own trees and only 100 gallons of heating oil.
[05:34.71]At that point I began thinking seriously about quitting my job and starting to freelance.The timing was terrible.
[05:44.14]By then,Shawn and Amy,our oldest girls were attending expensive Ivy League schools
[05:51.82]and we had only a few thousand dollars in the bank.Yet we kept coming back to the same question:
[05:59.52]Will there ever be a better time?The answer,decidedly,was no,
[06:05.71]and so--with my employer's blessings and half a year's pay in accumulated benefits in my pocket--off I went.
[06:14.57]9 There have been a few anxious moments since then,but on balance things have gone much better
[06:22.30]than we had any right to expect.For various stories of mine,I've crawled into black-bear dens for Sports Illustrated,
[06:31.84]hitched up dogsled racing teams for Smithsonian magazine,checked out the Lake Champlain "monster"
[06:40.14]for Science Digest,and canoed through the Boundary Waters wilderness area of Minnesota for Destinations.
[06:48.92]10 I'm not making anywhere near as much money as I did when I was employed full time,
[06:54.90]but now we don't need as much either.I generate enough income
[07:01.28]to handle our$600-a-month mortgage payments plus the usual expenses for a family like ours.
[07:09.19]That includes everything from music lessons and dental bills to car repairs and college costs.
[07:16.22]When it comes to insurance,we have a poor man's major-medical policy.
[07:22.12]We have to pay the first$500 of any medical fees for each member of the family.
[07:28.65]It picks up 80% of the costs beyond that.Although we are stuck with paying minor expenses,our premium is low
[07:38.21]--only$560 a year--and we are covered against catastrophe.Aside from that
[07:51.98]But we are setting aside$2,000 a year in an IRA.
[07:57.28]11 We've been able to make up the difference in income by cutting back
[08:02.51]without appreciably lowering our standard of living.We continue to dine out once or twice a month,
[08:09.87]but now we patronize local restaurants instead of more expensive places in the city.
[08:16.72]We still attend the opera and ballet in Milwaukee but only a few times a year.
[08:22.86]We eat less meat,drink cheaper wine and see fewer movies.Extravagant Christmases are a memory,
[08:32.18]and we combine vacations with story assignments....
[08:37.07]12 I suspect not everyone who loves the country would be happy living the way we do.
[08:43.47]It takes a couple of special qualities.One is a tolerance for solitude.Because we are so busy and on such a tight budget,
[08:54.02]we don't entertain much.During the growing season there is no time for socializing anyway.
[09:01.65]Jim and Emily are involved in school activities,but they too spend most of their time at home.
[09:09.15]13 The other requirement is energy--a lot of it.The way to make self-sufficiency work on a small scale
[09:17.71]is to resist the temptation to buy a tractor and other expensive laborsaving devices.
[09:24.77]Instead,you do the work yourself.The only machinery we own
[09:31.19](not counting the lawn mower) is a little three-horsepower rotary cultivator and a 16-inch chain saw.
[09:39.74]14 How much longer we'll have enough energy to stay on here is anybody's guess--perhaps for quite a while,
[09:47.28]perhaps not.When the time comes,we'll leave with a feeling of sorrow but also with a sense of pride
[09:55.25]at what we've been able to accomplish.We should make a fair profit on the sale of the place,too.
[10:02.62]We've invested about$35,000 of our own money in it,and we could just about double that if we sold today.
[10:11.45]But this is not a good time to sell.Once economic conditions improve,
[10:18.03]however,demand for farms like ours should be strong again.
[10:23.36]15 We didn't move here primarily to earn money though.We came because we wanted to improve the quality of our lives.
[10:31.77]When I watch Emily collecting eggs in the evening,
[10:36.06]fishing with Jim on the river or enjoying an old-fashioned picnic in the orchard with the entire family,
[10:43.37]I know we've found just what we were looking for.
[10:48.49]get by frustration suburban contentment
[10:55.41]过得去 挫折 郊外的 满足
[11:02.33]honey make it canoe ski
[11:05.77]蜂蜜 成功 独木舟 滑雪
[11:09.20]skate sunset low hawk
[11:12.04]溜冰 日落 哞哞叫 鹰
[11:14.87]deer haul firewood sled
[11:18.14]鹿 搬运 木柴 雪橇
[11:21.40]retile long-overdue improvement supplement
[11:25.75]重新用瓦盖 拖了很久的 改善 补充
[11:30.10]indoor spray orchard barn
[11:33.13]室内的 喷洒 果园 谷仓
[11:36.16]chick typewriter freelance pursue
[11:40.33]小鸡 打字机 自由撰稿人 追求
[11:44.50]household oversee beehive organ
[11:48.10]家庭 看管 蜂窝 风琴
[11:51.71]stack wicked overflow swamp
[11:54.16]将…堆起来 邪恶的 泛滥 淹没
[11:56.62]freezer cherry raspberry asparagus
[12:00.16]冰柜 樱桃 树莓 芦笋
[12:03.70]bean canned-goods cupboard plum
[12:07.01]豆 罐装品 碗橱 李子
[12:10.33]jelly squash pumpkin get through
[12:13.56]果子冻 南瓜属植物 南瓜 通过
[12:16.78]gallon at that point decidedly
[12:21.00]加仑 就在那时 肯定地
[12:25.22]on balance den illustrate hitch
[12:28.84]总的来说 兽穴 举例说明 用挽具套住
[12:32.46]dogsled monster digest boundary
[12:36.39]狗拉雪橇 怪物 文摘 边界
[12:40.32]wilderness generate dental
[12:42.74]荒野 形成 牙的
[12:45.15]insurance policy fee pick up
[12:48.48]保险 政策 费 付帐
[12:51.81]minor premium aside from retirement
[12:55.93]较少的 保险费 除了 退休
[13:00.04]cut back appreciably lower dine out
[13:03.87]减少 可观地 降低 外出吃饭
[13:07.70]patronize ballet extravagant suspect
[13:10.90]光顾 芭蕾舞 奢侈的 相信
[13:14.10]solitude budget requirement scale
[13:17.78]孤独 预算 要求 规模
[13:21.46]resist temptation device
[13:24.98]抵制 诱惑 装置
[13:28.49]horsepower rotary cultivator
[13:30.95]马力 旋转的 耕耘机
[13:35.53]利润 投资 主要地
