"Have you ever spent a few months doing steady manual labour out of doors? If you have, then can you honestly say that, once you got over the initial shock of it, you did not feel better, eat better, sleep better, make love better and think better? Physical toil in the open air, at work one can see the sense of doing, is pleasant, delightful and very good for us"
John Seymour - Bring Me My Bow 1977
John Seymour - Bring Me My Bow 1977
What more could you say than that?
Amen Kev
ReplyDeleteGill
It just kind of rang true!
DeleteYou could not have timed that better Kevin, what with the graft the new plot is providing.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it. I thought that many readers of this blog would understand what it meant.
DeleteNothing like working for days outdoors, you forget what day it is sometimes and to drink fresh water from a spring on water brakes, it flows out of the ground cold in the heat of summer.
ReplyDeleteNo spring here to drink from but I love the feel of each season on the skin of my face and the taste of salt from my sweat.
DeleteAfter 30 yrs of physical toil and way to many aches, I say be smart, go to school get a degree, and get others to do the work for you! ;-)
ReplyDeleteBut I bet if you'd spent the last 30 years sat in the same office you wouldn't be the interesting and useful man that you are today.
DeleteYou have genuine skills that many people could only ever dream of aquiring with their body that is too soft from years of under use. What could be better than sitting on a roof on a spring day and seeing the world from up there, or the feeling you get when you finish a complicated project and the customer has no idea how you did it.
But I might have a whole lot more money??? ;-) I get what you say Kev, and I do find joy in the final product of my labor, though shingling roofs was never my favorite. Admittedly sitting on the roof ridge at the end of the day gives us a unique perspective. Sort of like surveying our domain. And sucking down a cold one never felt so good. It is just that with age the pain at times seems to overwhelm the pleasure. Perhaps when I was younger I bounced back easier. Now I find my self increasingly reluctant to pay the price.
DeleteI have been a teacher all my life but now spend my days on our farm digging in our vege patch/working with the animals. I have never slept better ...good hard work is not stressful ...it's a good kind of tired at the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteSome days our farm requires me to be inside. Sending customer invoices, talking to the locker, ordering farm supplies. Returning phone calls. HATE those days. The days like today where I worked outside alongside my husband and 3 sons ...picking up trash, burning high grasses (at our new farm) walking long distances and getting sunburned are the very best.
ReplyDeleteSooooooooo true! Actually so true that after a year of me working outside the farm the hubs and I have decided that this just isn't working for us. I miss the farm more than I can put into words. One of us has to work outside the farm,that would be the DH he has by far the better earning capacity, but our lives ran much much smoother when I was not working outside the farm. I was happier, DH was happier and lordy knows the farm was in much better shape when I was home!
ReplyDeleteJohn Seymour is my smallholding hero. He inspired me to get an allotment and eventually live on my very own smallholding. Totally agree that manual labour is good for the body, mind and spirit!
ReplyDeleteHe speaks a lot of sense that man. We have lots of his books, even though they sometimes seem a bit dated they are so relevant to what we do.
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