And the livin’ is easy – for some

We got a sweet, sweet rain the other night, starting just after supper. You could feel it coming, and then, when it began to soak in, there was the aroma of earthly contentment, like the smell of a baby’s scalp, as the hot soil was quenched – the juices flowing through plant cells, the dust and pollen washed down into the ground. After such a wet June, it was hard to believe we would need precipitation so soon, but need it we did – and need it we will, soon enough.

I don’t mind the heat too much – or maybe I just mind the cold more than I used to, and the memory of winter keeps me sweating cheerfully right through until September. We live in the hinterland, just about as far away from salt water as you can be in Nova Scotia, so we don’t get the moderating effects of coastal weather – but there is usually a breeze here on the hill. The big poplar outside our bedroom window patters like rain, except on gusty nights, when it sounds uncannily like the surf, and I can imagine myself in a beachside cottage. (I used to wish we’d been able to afford oceanfront land, but not so much anymore.)

In a 1977 essay titled “Poppletalk,” from his Alder Music collection, longtime RD contributor Gary Saunders says the explanation for constantly fluttering poplar leaves lies in how they are attached: “Examine a summer twig and you will find that, instead of the sturdy round leaf stem found on most broadleaved trees, aspens have a slender stem compressed like the tail of an eel or the tooth of a comb, and easily bent from side to side. In fact, it is too weak to hold the leaf straight out. Hence the quaking.”

That sprawling poplar throws a lot of shade, too, which makes a huge difference during periods of hot weather, if that luxury is available to you. Summer is often associated with leisure and lassitude – some people even go on holidays – but it’s also a time when certain kinds of outdoor work need to be done. Tolerating the heat is relatively easy when you have a job that keeps you indoors most of the time – comfortably seated, no less. I’m acutely aware of this when I see vanloads of farm labourers pounding down our road early in the morning, two or three hours before most people are at work. And there’s no siesta on the agenda, no option of knocking off after lunch; they’re going to be out there in the blazing sun all day.

David Boehm, who wrote the thoughtful piece about agricultural labour in this issue (“Weighty responsibilities,” on pg. 26, which follows up from “Land of opportunity?” in our June issue), was telling me that the farmers he interviewed have a profound respect for horticultural workers who can put in long days – who know how “to sustain work, to keep moving beyond boredom, beyond fatigue.” It might not be intellectual work, but it’s certainly not mindless. You could actually call it “mindful” labour, as it requires being entirely tuned in with one’s body.

I recall, as a kid, being assigned the job of digging a hole or a trench – probably for septic or drainage maintenance of some kind – and being told that the secret was not to go at it aggressively, but to find a pace I could sustain. Forget about trying to scoop up large shovelfuls; just get into a rhythm, and keep going. I’m not sure whether this advice served me well. I can keep at it, but I’m kind of a slow worker. Never made big money in the treeplanting camp, even back then when I was the right age for that kind of job. Nowadays I can find pleasure in splitting firewood for a couple hours, and can eventually put up a pretty good stack – but it’s my firewood.

During a recent chat, one of my neighbours was grousing about some arduous task his wife had asked him to do. It was one of those basic moving-stuff-from-here-to-there jobs – likely involving a wheelbarrow, and suddenly necessary despite the mid-summer heat. “Donkey work!” he complained.

In deference to donkeys everywhere, I think this characterization had less to do with the physical demands of the task, or its tedium, and more to do with how, and by whom, he was compelled to do it. This is the very nature of work.

“I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats,” says one poor sod in Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” upon being assigned an unenviable chore. “If it be man’s work, I’ll do’t.”

In our household we generally do not confine ourselves to traditional gender roles, though we frequently joke that it would be nice to have an old-fashioned husband around to do some of the crappy men’s work, and an old-fashioned wife on hand to do the crappy women’s work. But hard work is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. It depends on the terms, and the meaning of the work.

Devotees of the “paleo” diet sometimes make the claim that our species’ shift to grain-based protein led not only to diminishing health, but to fortified borders, social inequality, and various forms of human servitude – all for the cultivation of fields. If you follow through with this caveman logic, you could conclude that the development of feed crops like oats also facilitated animal servitude, which continued to expand rapidly until about a century ago, when our beasts of burden were replaced by fossil fuels. And here we are. Blame it on the grain.

Sometimes I think I should have insisted that our teenage kids get summer jobs doing some kind of brutish physical work – but maybe the mere threat was enough. There is some merit in taking the initiative to find a job you actually like. Experiencing hard labour might give you a valuable sense of perspective, but as for building character – well, that could go either way. Sometimes hard work just makes people hard. Some people spend the latter part of their life trying to make sense of the work they did in the first part, by whatever revisionist means necessary. Of course, the most horrific lie is the one emblazoned across the gates at Auschwitz: Arbeit macht frei – “work sets you free.”

A good work ethic is a personal attribute that is universally admired in our culture, but it must be said that some hard-working people are a pain in the arse – especially those who feel the need to tell you about it. And some people who are highly productive are also rather destructive. The “work hard, play hard” types tend to leave some waste and wreckage in their wake.

The ones who get on their high horse about working hard are most often people who enjoy a high degree of autonomy in their work. Naturally, they don’t complain about putting in long hours engaged in an activity that feeds their ego – but some of them are pretty quick to complain about other people being lazy or unambitious. “Shiftless!” my grandmother used to say.

When we have worked to the point of physical exhaustion, we say that we are “spent” – an expression equating our very bodies with a form of currency. This is the problem with hard labour – you can’t keep doing it year after year without being depleted. Spent grain, the main by-product of brewing, can be used as animal feed or fertilizer, or for baked goods or bio-fuel. Spent hens, having laid all the eggs they can, are still good for the stew pot. What do we do with spent people, who have not had the opportunity to advance beyond hard labour?

I have an acquaintance who introduced a “labour acknowledgment” as part of the mealtime ritual with his young family – a few words and a moment of reflection, before eating, to express gratitude to the anonymous workers who helped to produce the food. He says he wanted his kids to understand that “products hide their labour.” It’s a recognition that “embodied energy,” contained in virtually everything we consume, includes human toil.

It’s something to consider this summer, as the federal election campaign ramps up and the parties make their smarmy pitch to “hard-working Canadian families.” I look around the dinner table and I ask, “What about us?”

Attentive readers will notice that Dirk van Loon, the founder and emeritus publisher of Rural Delivery, is taking a break from his “Pot Luck” column. Rest assured, Dirk is not lazing about idly, but is busy with other projects, and will contribute to the magazine again as time and inspiration allow.

Another important note: congratulations to frequent RD contributor Zack Metcalfe, on taking First Prize in the Best Outdoors, Wildlife or Environmental Feature category in the 2018 Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC) Awards, announced at the organization’s conference in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, on June 22. Zack’s winning story, “Antlers of the East,” which appeared in our July-August 2018 issue, was a fascinating and moving examination of the declining Atlantic caribou herd. If you missed it, check out our Facebook post, and share it widely. We’re proud to work with this deeply committed young journalist, and we expect great things from him in the future. DL