Simple Pleasures

A farmer’s life is ripe with simple pleasures. 

There’s no hurrying out the door to the morning commute, no job interviews or workplace evaluations, no harried lunch hour that always seem too short, and no organisational heirarchy to be deferentially observed. The only greasy pole is on the tractor power takeoff.

Even the downsides of farming reveal simple pleasures. Getting up before a winter dawn and breakfasting by the stove as the sky slowly blushes, then clapping your hands, breath steaming as you boot up to begin harvesting for the morning’s market. 

Or finally sitting down in the last rays of a long summer day, tasks accomplished and thinking of what’s to be done tomorrow...

Or eventually fixing some troubled machinery, tired of the fiddling and grease, confident she’ll start tomorrow to do the job required. And there’s pleasure in a well hoed bed. And in taking a minute to watch a pair of wedge-tails circle slowly over the valley.

But my most cherished farming pleasure is lunch. A proper sit down lunch at the table with plates and cutlery, with home-made bread on the board and kettle on the stove for after.

Often in the cooler months I’ll pop into the house around 11 and put a pan of lentils and water to simmer on the side of the stove while I continue working.

Then when my stomach tells me it’s time to down tools, I grab a fistful of collard greens on my way to the house. 

The roughly chopped greens go in with the lentils to cook rapidly for as long as it takes to find a bowl and spoon and toast a thick slice of bread. Season the dish well with salt and pepper, and butter the toast generously.

Simple. Nourishing. Lentils, greens, bread. Pleasure.

After lunch it’s on with the boots and outside to search for the perfect stroke of the hoe, the perfect dump of the barrow, and maybe a 10-minutes chat with the neighbour as he heads down the road...