Wiz,

Well, you obviously haven't done it but I made a decision to slow down and get off the tread mill over 30 years ago. Sure there are trade-offs but let's talk about 12 hour days.

I've worked lots of them over the years however there is a difference between 12 hours "at work for someone else" and 12 hours "at home working for yourself." Right now I'm finishing up cutting and splitting firewood. If I get tired of playing timberfaller, I quit and do something else for awhile (and there really is always something else that is worthwhile to do). This morning I split wood for a bit then decided to irrigate the strawberries. And, now I'm posting this after which I'll irrigate the garden and then go back to firewood.

My only commute is walking out the door. I live on top of a mountain and it is peaceful and serene. No noise except the wind or birds (well, there is the chainsaw when I'm cutting). I don't have a boss who wants me to cut corners or lie to get a customer. I work to my own standards even if it isn't efficient in a business sense of cranking out more faster and faster.

If I get really tired in the afternoon, I may stop and sit down for a bit and have a beer or two then go back to what I was doing. I'm not stuck in an office or cubical watching the clock.

Gene Logsdon has a neat section about some Amish gathering corn in his book The Contrary Farmer, ISBN 0-930031-67-9 (a book which everyone who is thinking about Ag should read). Anyway, he sort of snuck through a corn row and watched them work. He expected that they would be grumpy and doing it because they "had" to. Instead, he found that they were actually having a good time while wroking. To me this is one of the major differences between the kind of life I have led since saying the hell with being a chem plant manager and living in the boondocks. Yes, there is an unending bunch of work to do but work is fun (most of the time) even when it is hard and makes for a long day.

Todd