I have developed a schedule this summer wherein every Wednesday I do the mowing and other necessary yard work inasmuch as I can get to it. It often seems zenlike in its completion — not because it creates in me a sense of peace, but because the act itself has to be the reward for all the lasting good it does. What I mowed two days ago will look untended by Sunday. The weeds will continue their inexorable march into the flower beds, and we will spray and hoe and pull and trim and dig to the best of our abilities, and the grass and the flower beds and the shrubberies will all require more of the very same treatment before we’ve managed to catch a breath.
Nec tamen, haec cum sint hominumque boumque labores
versando terram experti, nimil improbus anser
Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intiba fibris
officiunt aut umbra nocet. pater ipse colendi
haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno.
(Virgil, Georgics, Book 1.118-124)
Virgil says that the gods gave us agricultural labor to keep us from torpor, from sinking in laziness. I guess he must be right about that one.
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