He took a break around 5 p.m. and went riding with me. Then he came in and made dinner while I picked raspberries and saskatoon berries. When he saw that I’d picked four gallons, he said, “looks like I’ll have to make jam.”
And so, after dinner, at 8:30 p.m. he arose (this was during dinner) and poured all the berries into a large pot. I didn’t ask, but I think his reasoning was that if he did this then, he’d finish the task earlier.
It is now 11:02 p.m. He is now canning the berries. I am upstairs. It smells quite good in here. Now we will be able to add canned jam to the list of growing, local produce.
We have neighbors who rent a place and have a sharecropper garden. We have other neighbors who weed there in exchange for produce.
All this to say that Pete didn’t get a break all day. He was going dawn until dusk. Me, I got horses out because I needed to take advantage of the better weather. Was this a break? I’d say that riding horses is on my part an activity borne of necessity, which means that in this respect it fits the definition of work.
True, it’s work that I enjoy. Riding four horses isn’t an activity that lends itself to hanging out and reading a book or drinking a beer on the porch.
Next: 226. 8/16/21: Swimming Against the Tide |