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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
In America many people have a romantic idea of life in the countryside. Many living in towns dream of starting up their own farm, of living off the land. Few get round to putting their dreams into practice. This is perhaps just as well, as the life of a farmer is far from easy, as Jim Doherty discovered when he set out to combine being a writer with running a farm. Nevertheless, as he explains, he has no regrets and remains1 enthusiastic about his decision to change his way of life.
在美国，不少人对乡村生活怀有浪漫的情感。许多居住在城镇的人梦想着自己办个农场，梦想着靠土地为生。很少有人真去把梦想变为现实。或许这也没有什么不好，因为，正如吉姆·多尔蒂当初开始其写作和农场经营双重生涯时所体验到的那样，农耕生活远非轻松自在。但他写道，自己并不后悔，对自己作出的改变生活方式的决定仍热情不减。
Mr. Doherty Builds His Dream Life
Jim Doherty
1 There are two things I have always wanted to do -- write and live on a farm. Today I'm doing both. I am not in E. B. White's class as a writer or in my neighbors' league as a farmer, but I'm getting by. And after years of frustration2 with city and suburban3 living, my wife Sandy and I have finally found contentment here in the country.
多尔蒂先生创建自己的理想生活
吉姆·多尔蒂
有两件事是我一直想做的――写作与务农。如今我同时做着这两件事。作为作家，我和E·B·怀特不属同一等级，作为农场主，我和乡邻也不是同一类人，不过我应付得还行。在城市以及郊区历经多年的怅惘失望之后，我和妻子桑迪终于在这里的乡村寻觅到心灵的满足。
2 It's a self-reliant sort of life. We grow nearly all of our fruits and vegetables. Our hens keep us in eggs, with several dozen left over to sell each week. Our bees provide us with honey, and we cut enough wood to just about make it through the heating season.
这是一种自力更生的生活。我们食用的果蔬几乎都是自己种的。自家饲养的鸡提供鸡蛋，每星期还能剩余几十个出售。自家养殖的蜜蜂提供蜂蜜，我们还自己动手砍柴，足可供过冬取暖之用。
3 It's a satisfying life too. In the summer we canoe on the river, go picnicking in the woods and take long bicycle rides. In the winter we ski and skate. We get excited about sunsets. We love the smell of the earth warming and the sound of cattle lowing. We watch for hawks4 in the sky and deer in the cornfields.
这也是一种令人满足的生活。夏日里我们在河上荡舟，在林子里野餐，骑着自行车长时间漫游。冬日里我们滑雪溜冰。我们为落日的余辉而激动。我们爱闻大地回暖的气息，爱听牛群哞叫。我们守着看鹰儿飞过上空，看玉米田间鹿群嬉跃。
4 But the good life can get pretty tough. Three months ago when it was 30 below, we spent two miserable5 days hauling firewood up the river on a sled. Three months from now, it will be 95 above and we will be cultivating corn, weeding strawberries and killing6 chickens. Recently, Sandy and I had to retile the back roof. Soon Jim, 16 and Emily, 13, the youngest of our four children, will help me make some long-overdue improvements on the outdoor toilet that supplements our indoor plumbing7 when we are working outside. Later this month, we'll spray the orchard8, paint the barn, plant the garden and clean the hen house before the new chicks arrive.
但如此美妙的生活有时会变得相当艰苦。就在三个月前，气温降到华氏零下30度，我们辛苦劳作了整整两天，用一个雪橇沿着河边拖运木柴。再过三个月，气温会升到95度，我们就要给玉米松土，在草莓地除草，还要宰杀家禽。前一阵子我和桑迪不得不翻修后屋顶。过些时候，四个孩子中的两个小的，16岁的吉米和13岁的埃米莉，会帮着我一起把拖了很久没修的室外厕所修葺一下，那是专为室外干活修建的。这个月晚些时候，我们要给果树喷洒药水，要油漆谷仓，要给菜园播种，要赶在新的小鸡运到之前清扫鸡舍。
5 In between such chores, I manage to spend 50 to 60 hours a week at the typewriter or doing reporting for the freelance articles I sell to magazines and newspapers. Sandy, meanwhile, pursues her own demanding schedule. Besides the usual household routine, she oversees9 the garden and beehives, bakes bread, cans and freezes, drives the kids to their music lessons, practices with them, takes organ lessons on her own, does research and typing for me, writes an article herself now and then, tends the flower beds, stacks a little wood and delivers the eggs. There is, as the old saying goes, no rest for the wicked on a place like this -- and not much for the virtuous10 either. 在这些活计之间，我每周要抽空花五、六十个小时，不是打字撰文，就是为作为自由撰稿人投给报刊的文章进行采访。桑迪则有她自己繁忙的工作日程。除了日常的家务，她还照管菜园和蜂房，烘烤面包，将食品装罐、冷藏，开车送孩子学音乐，和他们一起练习，自己还要上风琴课，为我做些研究工作并打字，自己有时也写写文章，还要侍弄花圃，堆摞木柴、运送鸡蛋。正如老话说的那样，在这种情形之下，坏人不得闲――贤德之人也歇不了。
6 None of us will ever forget our first winter. We were buried under five feet of snow from December through March. While one storm after another blasted huge drifts up against the house and barn, we kept warm inside burning our own wood, eating our own apples and loving every minute of it.
我们谁也不会忘记第一年的冬天。从12月一直到3月底，我们都被深达5英尺的积雪困着。暴风雪肆虐，一场接着一场，积雪厚厚地覆盖着屋子和谷仓，而室内，我们用自己砍伐的木柴烧火取暖，吃着自家种植的苹果，温馨快乐每一分钟。
7 When spring came, it brought two floods. First the river overflowed11, covering much of our land for weeks. Then the growing season began, swamping us under wave after wave of produce. Our freezer filled up with cherries, raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, peas, beans and corn. Then our canned-goods shelves and cupboards began to grow with preserves, tomato juice, grape juice, plums, jams and jellies. Eventually, the basement floor disappeared under piles of potatoes, squash and pumpkins12, and the barn began to fill with apples and pears. It was amazing.
开春后，有过两次泛滥。一次是河水外溢，我们不少田地被淹了几个星期。接着一次是生长季节到了，一波又一波的农产品潮涌而来，弄得我们应接不暇。我们的冰箱里塞满了樱桃、蓝莓、草莓、芦笋、豌豆、青豆和玉米。接着我们存放食品罐的架子上、柜橱里也开始堆满一罐罐的腌渍食品，有番茄汁、葡萄汁、李子、果酱和果冻。最后，地窖里遍地是大堆大堆的土豆、西葫芦、南瓜，谷仓里也储满了苹果和梨。真是太美妙了。
8 The next year we grew even more food and managed to get through the winter on firewood that was mostly from our own trees and only 100 gallons of heating oil. At that point I began thinking seriously about quitting my job and starting to freelance. The timing13 was terrible. By then, Shawn and Amy, our oldest girls were attending expensive Ivy14 League schools and we had only a few thousand dollars in the bank. Yet we kept coming back to the same question: Will there ever be a better time? The answer, decidedly, was no, and so -- with my employer's blessings15 and half a year's pay in accumulated benefits in my pocket -- off I went.
第二年我们种了更多的作物，差不多就靠着从自家树林砍斫的木柴以及仅仅100加仑的燃油过了冬。其时，我开始认真考虑起辞了职去从事自由撰稿的事来。时机选得实在太差。当时，两个大的女儿肖恩和埃米正在费用很高的常春藤学校上学，而我们只有几千美金的银行存款。但我们一再回到一个老问题上来：真的会有更好的时机吗？答案无疑是否定的。于是，带着老板的祝福，口袋里揣着作为累积津贴的半年薪水，我走了。
9 There have been a few anxious moments since then, but on balance things have gone much better than we had any right to expect. For various stories of mine, I've crawled into black-bear dens16 for Sports Illustrated17, hitched18 up dogsled racing19 teams for Smithsonian magazine, checked out the Lake Champlain "monster" for Science Digest, and canoed through the Boundary Waters wilderness20 area of Minnesota for Destinations.
那以后有过一些焦虑的时刻，但总的来说，情况比我们料想的要好得多。为了写那些内容各不相同的文章，我为《体育画报》爬进过黑熊窝；为《史密森期刊》替参赛的一组组狗套上过雪橇；为《科学文摘》调查过尚普兰湖水怪的真相；为《终点》杂志在明尼苏达划着小舟穿越美、加边界水域内的公共荒野保护区。
10 I'm not making anywhere near as much money as I did when I was employed full time, but now we don't need as much either. I generate enough income to handle our $600-a-month mortgage payments plus the usual expenses for a family like ours. That includes everything from music lessons and dental bills to car repairs and college costs. When it comes to insurance, we have a poor man's major-medical policy. We have to pay the first $500 of any medical fees for each member of the family. It picks up 80% of the costs beyond that. Although we are stuck with paying minor21 expenses, our premium22 is low -- only $560 a year -- and we are covered against catastrophe23. Aside from that and the policy on our two cars at $400 a year, we have no other insurance. But we are setting aside $2,000 a year in an IRA.
我挣的钱远比不上担任全职工作时的收入，可如今我们需要的钱也没有过去多。我挣的钱足以应付每月600美金的房屋贷款按揭以及一家人的日常开销。那些开销包括了所有支出，如音乐课学费、牙医账单、汽车维修以及大学费用等等。至于保险，我们买了一份低收入者的主要医疗项目保险。我们需要为每一位家庭成员的任何一项医疗费用支付最初的500美金。医疗保险则支付超出部分的80％。虽然我们仍要支付小部分医疗费用，但我们的保险费也低--每年只要560美金--而我们给自己生大病保了险。除了这一保险项目，以及两辆汽车每年400美金的保险，我们就没有其他保险了。不过我们每年留出2000美元入个人退休金账户。
11 We've been able to make up the difference in income by cutting back without appreciably24 lowering our standard of living. We continue to dine out once or twice a month, but now we patronize local restaurants instead of more expensive places in the city. We still attend the opera and ballet in Milwaukee but only a few times a year. We eat less meat, drink cheaper wine and see fewer movies. Extravagant25 Christmases are a memory, and we combine vacations with story assignments...
我们通过节约开支而又不明显降低生活水准的方式来弥补收入差额。我们每个月仍出去吃一两次饭，不过现在我们光顾的是当地餐馆，而不是城里的高级饭店。我们仍去密尔沃基听歌剧看芭蕾演出，不过一年才几次。我们肉吃得少了，酒喝得便宜了，电影看得少了。铺张的圣诞节成为一种回忆，我们把完成稿约作为度假的一部分……
12 I suspect not everyone who loves the country would be happy living the way we do. It takes a couple of special qualities. One is a tolerance26 for solitude27. Because we are so busy and on such a tight budget, we don't entertain much. During the growing season there is no time for socializing anyway. Jim and Emily are involved in school activities, but they too spend most of their time at home.
我想，不是所有热爱乡村的人都会乐意过我们这种生活的。这种生活需要一些特殊的素质。其一是耐得住寂寞。由于我们如此忙碌，手头又紧，我们很少请客。在作物生长季节，根本就没工夫参加社交活动。吉米和埃米莉虽然参加学校的各种活动，但他俩大多数时间也呆在家里。
13 The other requirement is energy -- a lot of it. The way to make self-sufficiency work on a small scale is to resist the temptation to buy a tractor and other expensive laborsaving devices. Instead, you do the work yourself. The only machinery28 we own (not counting the lawn mower) is a little three-horsepower rotary29 cultivator and a 16-inch chain saw.
另一项要求是体力――相当大的体力。小范围里实现自给自足的途径是抵制诱惑，不去购置拖拉机和其他昂贵的节省劳力的机械。相反，你要自己动手。我们仅有的机器（不包括割草机）是一台3马力的小型旋转式耕耘机以及一架16英寸的链锯。
14 How much longer we'll have enough energy to stay on here is anybody's guess -- perhaps for quite a while, perhaps not. When the time comes, we'll leave with a feeling of sorrow but also with a sense of pride at what we've been able to accomplish. We should make a fair profit on the sale of the place, too. We've invested about $35,000 of our own money in it, and we could just about double that if we sold today. But this is not a good time to sell. Once economic conditions improve, however, demand for farms like ours should be strong again.
没人知道我们还能有精力在这里再呆多久--也许呆很长一阵子，也许不是。到走的时候，我们会怆然离去，但也会为自己所做的一切深感自豪。我们把农场出售也会赚相当大一笔钱。我们自己在农场投入了约35，000美金的资金，要是现在售出的话价格差不多可以翻一倍。不过现在不是出售的好时机。但是一旦经济形势好转，对我们这种农场的需求又会增多。
15 We didn't move here primarily to earn money though. We came because we wanted to improve the quality of our lives. When I watch Emily collecting eggs in the evening, fishing with Jim on the river or enjoying an old-fashioned picnic in the orchard with the entire family, I know we've found just what we were looking for.
但我们主要不是为了赚钱而移居至此的。我们来此居住是因为想提高生活质量。当我看着埃米莉傍晚去收鸡蛋，跟吉米一起在河上钓鱼，或和全家人一起在果园里享用老式的野餐，我知道，我们找到了自己一直在寻求的生活方式。
收听单词发音 |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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oversees
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| v.监督，监视( oversee的第三人称单数 ) | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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pumpkins
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| n.南瓜( pumpkin的名词复数 )；南瓜的果肉，南瓜囊 | |
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timing
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| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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premium
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| n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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appreciably
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| adv.相当大地 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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rotary
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| adj.(运动等)旋转的；轮转的；转动的 | |
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