In America many people have a romantic idea of life in the countryside. Many living in towns dream of starting up their own farm, of living off the land. Few get round to putting their dreams into practice. This is perhaps just as well, as the life of farmer is far from easy, as Jim Doherty discovered when he set out to combine being a writer with running a farm. Nevertheless, as he explains, he has no regrets and remains enthusiastic about his decision to change his way of life.
Build His Dream Life
Jim Doherty
1、 There are two things I have always want to do – write and live on a farm. Today I’m doing both. I’m not in . white’s class as a writer or in my neighbors’ league as a farmer, but I’m getting by. And after years of frustration with city and suburban living, my wife Sandy and I have finally found contentment here in the country.
2、 It’s a self-reliant sort of life. We grow nearly all of fruits and vegetables. Our hens keep us in eggs, with several dozen left over to sell each week. Our bees provide us with honey, and we cut enough wood to just about make it through the heating season.
3、 It’s a satisfying life too. In the summer, we canoe on the river, go picking in the woods, and take long bicycle rides. In the winter, we ski and skate, we get excited about sunsets. We love the smell of the earth warming and the sound of cattle lowing. We watch for hawks in the sky and deer in the cornfields.
4、 But the good life can get pretty tough. There month ago when it was 30 below, we spent two miserable days hauling firewood up the river on a sled. There months from now, it will be 95 above and we will be cultivating corn, weeding strawberries and killing chickens. Recently, Sandy and I had to retile the back roof. Soon Jim, 16 and Emily, 13, the youngest of our four children will help me makes some long-overdue improvements on the outdoor toilet that supplements our indoor plumbing when we are working in the outside. Later in this month, we’ll spary the o, clean the bar, plant the garden, and clean the hens house before the new chick arrive.
5、 In between such chores, I manage to spent 50 to 60 hours a week at the typewrite or doing reporting for the freelance articles I sell to magazines and newspapers. Sandy, meanwhile, pursues her own demanding schedule. Besides  the usual household routine, she oversees the garden and beehives, bakes bread, cans and freezes, drives the kids to their music class, practices with them, takes organ lessons on her own, dose research and typing for me, write an article herself now and then, tends the flower beds, stacks a little wood and delivers the eggs. There is, as the old saying goes, no rest for the wicked on a place like this, and not much for the virtuous either.
6、 None of us will ever forget our first winter, we were buried under five feet of snow from the December through March. sort of等于什么While one storm after another blasted huge drifts up against the house and barn, we kept warming inside burning our own wood, eating our own apples and loving every minute of it.
7、 When spring came, it brought two floods. First the river overflowed, covering much of our land for weeks. Then the growing season began, swamping us under wave after wave
of produce. Our freezer filled up with cherries, raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, peas, beans and corn. Then our canned-goods shelves and cupboards began to grow with preserves, tomato juice, grape juice, plums, jams and jellies. Eventually, the basement floor disappeared under piles of potatoes, squash and pumpkins, and the barn began to fill with apples and pears. It was amazing.
8、 The next year, we grow even more food and managed to get through the winter on firewood that was mostly from our own trees and only 100 gallons of heating oil. At that point I began thinking seriously about quitting my job and starting to freelance. The timing was terrible. By then, Shawn and Amy, our oldest girls were attending expensive Ivy League Schools and we had only a few thousand dollars in the bank. Yet we kept coming back to the same question: will there ever be a better time The answer decidedly, was no, and so – with my employer’s blessings and half years pay in accumulated benefits in my pocket – off I went.
9、 There have been a few anxious moments since then, but on balance things have gone
much better than we had any right to expect. For various stories of mine, I’ve crawled into black-bear dens for Sports Illustrated, hitched up dogsled racing teams for Smithsonian magazine, checked out the Lack Champlain “monster” for Science Digest, and canoed through the Boundary waters wilderness area of Minnesota for Destinations.
10、 I’m not making anywhere near as much money as I did when I was employed full time, but now we don’t need as much either. I generate enough income to handle our $600-a-month mortgage  payments plus the usual expenses for a family like ours. That includes everything from music lessons and dental bills to car repairs and college costs. When it comes to insurance, we have a poor men’s major-medical policy. We have to pay the first 500 dollars of any medical fees for each member of the family. It picks up 80% of the costs beyond that. Although we are stuck with paying minor expenses, our premium is low - Only 560 dollars a year - and we are covered against catastrophe. Aside from that and the policy on our two cars at $400 a year, we have no other insurance. But we are setting aside $2000 a year in an IRA.

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