“Think of all that might be accomplished in the time that you throw away.”–Marcus Aurelius

My standard workday begins with coffee and often a reading of Marcus Aurelius, the closest thing to the sacred texts that I imbibe, in these the days of my middle period. He seems to suit my aims and goals remarkably well, and he serves as a gentle scold for all my vices and weaknesses. It is not a conceit, for I am aware that I accomplish more than most as I navigate the work world and the farm life. Yet, I am constantly nagged by the fear of not doing enough, of wasting time.

It is not for me to be one of those grim souls who plow through tasks simply to reach the point where sleep claims them until the next day, or for eternity. I leaven the days with plenty of pleasure: in the company of my partner, friends, and neighbors, with dinners and books and discussions.  For the tasks and the work, no one could accuse me of shirking my duties. Yet the margins of life where time is ill-spent nag me.

My father is a man who, at 88, still gets up early to exercise. Who still serves on the parish levee board as an engineering consultant. Who, as a teen, wrote to his mother from a warship in the Pacific to ask for his trigonometry text. He wanted to bone up on his math skills in preparation for college when he was mustered out of service after the war.

That familial model surely must inform my farm work: Yesterday morning I was weeding the potato patch before 7 a.m., and I had prepped the rooster even earlier for the dinner of coq au vin that evening.

I then let the sheep out into a paddock for a morning feed and headed in for a spot of the same before beginning the real work for the day. An electric fence for the cattle was running on half-charge. So a first task was to spot and correct the areas of power drain. A pair of loppers in hand, I walked the fenceline from the charger to the pasture, pruning back a dozen limbs that were touching the wire and pulling down the charge.

Back to the garden I returned for another hour of weeding and tying tomato vines. Then a round of short tasks–moving a round bale of hay into the barn and spreading it around for bedding, and finishing the morning in a lower pasture pulling downed trees to the edge of a pond.

As the heat and humidity drove the dogs back home and into the shade, I took their sensible lead and returned to the house for lunch. After a short nap and a bit of reading, I was back in the garden. I harvested some Swiss chard, which I drove into town and delivered to some friends. We spent a pleasant hour catching up before I turned the truck for home. There, I spent some time with Cindy getting into the hives, examining the supers for honey flow and the hive bodies for brood and documenting what we saw with my camera.

 More chores in the evening, followed by a dinner of coq au vin, fresh pears, cheese and a salad, capped by walking up into the pasture to see a brand new calf.

It was a satisfying and productive day. Yet this account is not meant to brag, for the world is filled with hard-working people and there are many days when I am less productive. The desire and will to work well are both cultural and familial, but they are also influenced by having work that brings satisfaction and accomplishment. And the farm for me brings plenty of both.

But the legacy of our rich heritage, be it Roman emperors or World War II vets, looms large. Which is perhaps why I still have that nagging feeling of underachievement even after a good day.

Maybe I should write home for a trigonometry book?

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Reading this weekend: The Generous Earth, by Philip Oyler. And Much Ado About Mutton, by Bob Kennard