By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--November 28, 2023
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How good it would be to have a deliberate day. It could be any day of a random week, or it could be a holiday. It would be better to plan it ahead a bit so as to enjoy its approach, anticipate its imminent arrival. We could savor it even before it arrives.
It would start with a comfortable morning routine. We would create the comfort, because it’s too chilly in the house when it’s time to get up. The first self-serving chore is to build a fire in the stove. I knew the day was coming, so there is plenty of cardboard, tiny sticks, pine cones, medium sticks, and different sizes of split firewood ready to go beside the stove. With the right materials, a cheerful blaze begins almost immediately. Draw the comfortable chairs up close and gaze at the flames that make the sticks crackle. One of us settles in with a throw over the lap.
Now start the coffee and put the tea kettle over a low flame. The coffee is ready first. Pour and put in just the right amount of sugar, then enough half and half to smooth it out but not make the cup too cool. Stir and it’s perfect. Serve it in front of the fire. Just then the kettle begins to groan just a bit and a thread of steam rises from the spout. Pour the water over the tea in the small teapot. Fill the teacup with hot water and let it sit. Take the teapot to the coffee prep area. Wait only a minute. Pour the hot water from the cup back into the kettle. Pour the freshly brewed tea into the warmed cup. Add the sugar and stir, then add just the slightest splash of half and half. Now it’s a perfect English cuppa. Sink into my fireside chair with the fragrant, steaming cup and clink a ‘cheers’ to the day ahead. Add a long pause to savor. There’s a second cup of coffee served, and then it’s time to stoke the fire. The radiant heat can be felt six feet and more away now, but the floor is still cool where the cool air from down the hall flows toward the stove. The throw isn’t so urgent. The bliss has only begun.
Now for the extended intermediate spell between starting the day and breakfast. There is coffee to finish. It’s a time for a private devotional and meditative staring at the fire. “Are you comfortable?” Nods and smiles and knowing looks go together nicely. We check for texts and emails. It’s a time to check the first news of the day from multiple sources around the world. These tasks are manageable and rewarding. There is no commercial television programming to hook and distract us. This interval can take from fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on the time we decided to get up. A daily question comes up. What weather shall we expect today? It’s a question our farm ancestors asked every day. We continue the tradition because it will affect what we will do for the day. Ah, good. The rain isn’t due until Sunday, and more cold will settle in after that. We can handle it.
On a very cold day, the next activity would be to take buckets to the barn to thaw water for livestock. The lights come on early there, so we don’t want them to go thirsty when the water is frozen. On a not so cold day, and because water was filled last evening, breakfast is next.
Breakfast is one of the great pleasures of the rural life. We anticipate work of some kind every day, so breakfast will launch us toward the first labor of the day, giving us strength and warmth, too. When possible, it’s a delight to have as much of breakfast come from the farm itself. Toast, eggs, vegetables, oats, bacon, sausage, milk all make for someone’s favorites. I hear sometimes that pie is what’s for breakfast, and I smile at the thought, because our ancestors thought that was a good idea, too. It makes a fine dessert after breakfast, I can assure you. Another cup of coffee or fine black tea works right about now, too. We have our favorites. Hers is good, but alarmingly small. Mine is usually a two-egg scramble with a vegetable or two, cheese, and anything leftover from the previous day. Toast with local honey or jam completes the menu.
Breakfast at the counter brings out the crossword printed the previous Saturday. Working the crossword keeps us sharp, we tell ourselves. She specializes in some things, I in others. In a good week we’ll finish the puzzle by Tuesday. In a difficult crossword week, we may quit and go on to another one in the unfinished stack. We’ll come back to it another time. Usually we get them done with little or no looking up. When my neck gets sore, it’s time to move to the next segment of the day.
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Now it’s time to get livestock tended and have a look around. The curious old cat will appear if her bowl is empty. She looks like a little fox some days, long haired, mottled golden brown on her back with a white tip on her tail and dark feet, but she’s wary, a survivor if there ever was one. She’ll be on the front step if her bowl has been empty for longer than she thinks it should have been. A slightly pitiful ‘Mew’ hangs in the air as she trots down the walk, stiff-legged and stiff-tailed toward the gate. She pauses to look back to add pressure and making sure I’m keeping up. I dip a plastic cup from the bucket in the garage and move toward the wood shed. She’s already there, always just out of reach, waiting for the sound of the bits in the bowl. She was furious last week when I accidentally picked up a bag of cat food that was not her favorite brand. I put a cup in the bowl and moved out of the way so she could get to it. Before I could get to the barn, I realized she had followed me, outraged that I could be so negligent. When I turned, she stopped and sat down. “Well?” she seemed to say. “Are you forgetting something?” So I ask her what’s wrong, knowing full well what it is. She glares. “Uh, in case you didn’t notice, that’s NOT Kit ‘n Kaboodle in the dish!” I’m guessing her look says, “What is wrong with you? You know I hate everything else.” On the way back from the barn she’s still sitting in the same spot, warm by now, I’d guess. I ask her idly, “It looks just like the other cat food to me.” She stalks off toward the woods, showing me her south end. She’s probably thinking, “What does a barn cat have to do to get a decent meal around this place?” When I check an hour later, there’s some of it gone, but she’s not around to let me gloat and tell her I knew she’d eat it anyway.
With livestock comfortable for the day and all needs met, it’s a good time to split a wheelbarrow load of firewood. That warms me and makes for a cheerful pile beside the door. Thin blue smoke rises nearly straight up from the chimney before I go back inside.
Now it’s a time for choosing. There is good work to be done every day, even a ‘day off,’ whatever that means. We don’t aspire to idleness. A good goal is productive work of our choosing, work that will benefit us either today, or further down the road, or even next year. We have tasks that need doing every day of the year. Being faithful to those tasks means that on any given day we can take a break if we need to do so. . . Maybe later. For now there is the fire to tend, correspondence, checking the office work, tasks outside and inside, thinking about what’s coming for lunch and, wait. It’s nearly eleven o’clock. Lunch could be any time!
We have different lunch favorites. I prepare these, then it might be time for a nap, or on a Saturday or Sunday I’ll work on a column like this one. Until 2 PM or so there might be errands to run or time to walk down to the mailbox and back. If there’s feed to buy, straw to truck in, or groceries to fetch, those can happen now.
Before 3 PM is a good time for a little break for afternoon tea. Now that I’m getting older and crankier and prone to less sleep, it has to be decaf. No problem there because I’ve scouted the brands for the best one to make a fine afternoon cup. Hmmmm. A biscuit would be nice. How about a McVitie’s Digestive?
Afternoon is the home stretch. There is always plenty to do, so best get to doing some of it. There are building and maintenance projects, yard work, driveway maintenance, firewood, bird feeders to fill, and a dozen other things that might get checked on a list, but which tend to come back in a few days or less. In a nearly perfect day, there might be some baking to do in the afternoon. Will it be pie, cookies, potatoes, something for supper? The cookbook and the recipe file make for endless possibilities.
The evening meal falls into a routine of about five different entrees, depending on what we choose and what has been available at the grocery lately. Once in a while there’s a vegetable supper, and it all works well. Afterward there’s always popcorn and apples.
Evenings are distraction time. Usually there’s a movie or a series that’s on streaming now. We’ve watched Doc Martin over and over along with Longmire, Endeavour, period dramas like Pride and Prejudice, or favorite movies. It’s been six months since we’ve seen either Casablanca or High Noon. Maybe this coming week?
Then there is reading and checking news and email before the day ends. The day’s dishes have to be prepped and leftovers put in cartons for use later on. The livestock have to be checked and made comfortable for the evening, fastened in where they are completely safe from any kind of predator. Then it’s time for lights out for everybody. The goal is to be asleep by 9 PM, and sometimes I manage that.
On a good day I try to be grateful to have come so far, to have overcome so much, to have seen what we have seen, and to consider the journey incomplete. . . but in process. It’s good to have some concern for the future, but not so much as to unsettle us. We must keep working at it, but there is hope.
Of course, it won’t always be like this. But it’s like this now. So see it now, don’t just miss it later after it’s gone. Savor it now. Look around and remind yourself how lucky we are. Maybe tomorrow can be much like this day was today.
We’ve just passed Thanksgiving week. We try to remember to be thankful on that day, and with luck, we’ll remember to be thankful every week of the year. So far, so good.
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Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.