Living The Good Life With Helen And Scott Nearing

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During the autumn months, as we gave the gravel pit a final once-over, inspected the sap pipelines, swept out the tool shed, sowed rye in the big garden, stored the root vegetables and the apples, and put the snow-stakes along the road and beside the culverts, we asked ourselves: "Well, what is our project for next year? "

In the course of weeks or months, we talked over various possibilities, decided between them, put our decisions on paper, drew our plans, filed them in the appropriate place, and were ready well ahead of time to start on them when spring came. If we found we were short of lumber for some building operation, we cut logs during the winter, put them on skids, and sent them to the mill as soon as roads hardened up in the spring. We aimed to keep our lumber shed full of miscellaneous pieces for odd jobs or big projects.

Our woodsheds, too, were filled ahead of time. We considered dry wood under cover better than money in the bank. Our inventories for the sugar business were kept well filled so that needs were anticipated and crises due to lack of essential materials were avoided. When we had money, we put it into building. If we could not finish a building one year, we stopped at a planned point and finished it the next year.

In order to carry out our various plans we had to use a certain amount of self-discipline, and expected it of those who lived with us.

Each day was divided into two main blocks of time: four morning hours and four afternoon hours. At breakfast time on weekdays we first looked at the weather, then asked, "How shall we arrange the day?"

Suppose that the morning was assigned for bread-labor. We then agreed upon the tasks that each member of the group should take on ... in the garden, in the woods, on construction, in the shop, at sugarmaking or packing. If one's bread-labor was performed in the morning, the afternoon automatically became personally directed. One might read, write, sit in the sun, walk in the woods, play music, go to town. We earned our four hours of leisure by our four hours of labor.

On Sundays we varied our schedule by having no schedule and by doing no regular bread-labor. Usually there was a period of music Sunday morning and often a group discussion Sunday evenings. Other evenings there was a period of reading aloud by someone while the others cracked nuts, shelled beans, or did some personal chore like darning or knitting. We adhered generally to this daily and weekly routine, but not fanatically. However, unless there was a good and sufficient reason, we did not depart from it.

Each person on our project also took vacations ... blocks of time ranging from weeks to months, which were set off against equal periods of bread-labor time. We talked these matters over well in advance, arranging the vacation schedules in a way that made sense in terms of work urgency on one side and personal preference on the other. Our aim was to get a year's livelihood in return for half a year of bread-labor. We were quite flexible in arranging the details. Occasionally we would work steadily for months and then take off months away from work.

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