I’ve been revisiting lately some of Mark Twain’s books that I first read when I was in high school, and I’m tempted to steal a scam from Tom Sawyer's bag of tricks. Remember how his Aunt Polly wanted Tom to whitewash the fence surrounding her house, and Tom convinced some of his schoolmates to do the job for him? (plus pay Tom for the privilege.)
Leah and I have been joking that we might do the same kind of ruse here, because we’ve been feeling a wee bit overwhelmed with all the summertime chores we have on our to-do list: There was firewood that I split and stacked (summer has barely arrived here in the Pacific Northwest, but I’m already having to think ahead to winter;) and there’s an amazing crop of moss on the roof I’ve been scraping off, shingle-by-shingle. And the garden and orchard are beginning to yield produce, thus Leah has been busy in the kitchen, canning and preserving.
So our joke went like this: There must be folks on the other side of Puget Sound in Seattle -- city-types, you know? -- who would love to come out here to our small farm and do some back-to-the-land work. We’d have a dude ranch of sorts where stressed-out urbanites could pick apples and blackberries, then slave away in a hot kitchen, making jam that Leah and I can eat this winter. Maybe those city folks would even pay us for the soul-healing tonic of doing Good Honest Work.
Just as Tom Sawyer was able to go fishing once the gullible kids took over his painting responsibilities, Leah and I too would have free time that presently is so hard to come by. We could go for leisurely walks. We could pet the neighbor’s horses.
I asked the horses the other day what they thought of my plan, and they nodded approvingly.
