Walking a hundred yards while holding a piglet, who is squalling…loudly, from one hand, while opening gates with the other, yelling at the dogs fighting around my feet, is like a bizarro rural form of CrossFit exercise. Repeat it two times for an extra cardio/audio workout and you get an idea of this farmer’s small farm fitness routine.

Not that this post is about fitness. Although, God only knows I need it after eating a collard green gratin on Friday night. (And if you would like to virtually eat it, read on)

1. Wash, then chop up a pound or two of collards.
2. Take a large pot, throw in a couple of ounces of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil, add greens, cover, and cook over low-medium heat for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
3. In a pan make a sauce with more butter and flour, add slowly 1.5 cup of milk. Salt and pepper and few grates of nutmeg. Bring to boil then simmer for 2-3 minutes and remove from heat. When cool stir in 2 eggs and a dollop of cream cheese.
4. Stir sauce into greens and adjust seasoning. Transfer to a shallow baking dish. Top with breadcrumbs and add a drizzle of olive oil.
5. Bake 30 minutes at 300 degrees. Finish under broiler for a few minutes to crisp up the top.

Saturday, although tempted to lay about, I spent the morning working off that gratin, and a pork loin (cooked in heavy cream and Dijon mustard), building a new pig paddock to house those squealing piglets. It was built on the site where the north garden had stood for a few years. Which in turn, stood on the location of an older pig pen, which is in the way of a natural cycle on this farm.

A cycle of a different sort might just be what the doctor ordered, if he knew of that dinner. Unless he saw our highway in front of the farm. Which would appeal more towards the mortician looking to bolster business than a way to extend this life. I could throw my bike, which I don’t own, into the truck bed, which I do, then drive somewhere safe to ride. But that seems like a special hell that attracts a head in the sand approach to maintaining heart healthy activity, especially when twinned with the dimming of our fossil fuel world.

Which, ironically, and stay with me, brought me by pickup truck to the old Galyon’s market, late Saturday afternoon, where the new Indian owner shook his head sadly when I asked for a bag of tortilla chips to go with my homemade Hatch pepper salsa. Supply chains, he said, are fragile. So is the timer on your pizza oven, I replied. He turned and dashed to the oven that was billowing black smoke.

I drove home to make my own tortilla chips, while thinking about the pizza and the owner of the market. It occurred to me that he had just come up with a revolutionary way to burn two thousand calories in less time than it took you to read this post. Which my friends, makes for one impressive fitness regime.

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Reading this weekend: Travels Through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida (W. Bartram), The Gifts of Reading (R. Macfarlane), Glimpses of the Barren Lands (T. Mallet)

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