大學(xué)英語(yǔ)綜合教程第三冊(cè) 1

[00:00.00]In America many people have a romantic idea of life in the countryside. Many living in towns [00:08.12]dream of starting up their own farm, of living off the land .Few get round to putting their dreams into practice. [00:17.21]This is perhaps just as well, as the life of a farmer is far from easy, as Jim Doherty discovered [00:25.73]when he set out to combine being a writer with running a farm. Nevertheless, as he explains, [00:33.46]he has no regrets and remains enthusiastic about his decision to change his way of life. [00:41.61]MR.DOHERTY BUILDS HIS DREAM LIFEBy Jim Doherty [00:48.12]There are two things I have always wanted to do--write and live on a farm. Today I'm doing both. [00:56.87]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. [01:05.18]And after years of frustration with city and suburban living, [01:10.61]my wife Sandy and I have finally found contentment here in the country. [01:17.27]2 It's a self-reliant sort of life.We grow nearly all of our fruits and vegetables.Our hens keep us in eggs, [01:27.01]with several dozen left over to sell each week.Our bees provide us with honey, [01:33.91]and we cut enough wood to just about make it through the heating season. [01:39.71]3 It's a satisfying life too.In the summer we canoe on the river,go picnicking in the woods [01:48.25]and take long bicycle rides.In the winter we ski and skate.We get excited about sunsets. [01:57.60]We love the smell of the earth warming and the sound of cattle lowing. [02:03.95]We watch for hawks in the sky and deer in the cornfields. [02:09.52]4 But the good life can get pretty tough.Three months ago when it was 30below,we spent two miserable days [02:19.55]hauling firewood up the river on a sled.Three months from now,it will be 95 above and we will be cultivating corn, [02:29.94]weeding strawberries and killing chickens.Recently,Sandy and I had to retile the back roof. [02:39.37]Soon Jim,16 and Emily,13,the youngest of our four children, [02:46.61]will help me make some long-overdue improvements on the out-door toilet that supplements our indoor plumbing [02:55.07]when we are working outside.Later this month,we'll spray the orchard, [03:01.76]paint the barn,plant the garden and clean the hen house before the new chicks arrive. [03:09.00]5 In between such chores,I manage to spend 50 to 60 hours a week at the typewriter or doing reporting [03:17.98]for the freelance articles I sell to magazines and newspapers.Sandy,meanwhile,pursues her own demanding schedule. [03:27.67]Besides the usual household routine,she oversees the garden and beehives,bakes bread,cans and freezes, [03:37.16]drives the kids to their music lessons,practices with them,takes organ lessons on her own,does research and typing for me, [03:46.69]writes an article herself now and then,tends the flower beds,stacks a little wood and delivers the eggs. [03:55.96]There is,as the old saying goes,no rest for the wicked on a place like this--and not much for the virtuous either. [04:05.05]6 None of us will ever forget our first winter.We were buried under five feet of snow from December through March. [04:14.15]While one storm after another blasted huge drifts up against the house and barn, [04:20.86]we kept warm inside burning our own wood,eating our wen apples and loving every minute of it. [04:29.19]7 When spring came,it brought two floods.First the river overflowed,covering much of our land for weeks. [04:38.00]Then the growing season began,swamping us under wave after wave of produce. [04:44.58]Our freezer filled up with cherries,raspberries,strawberries,asparagus,peas,beans and corn. [04:54.90]Then our cannedgoods shelves and cupboards began to grow with preserves,tomato juice,grape juice, [05:04.61]plums,jams and jellies.Eventually,the basement floor disappeared under piles of potatoes, [05:13.78]squash and pumpkins,and the barn began to fill with apples and pears.It was amazing. [05:21.15]8 The next year we grew even more food and managed to get through the winter on firewood [05:28.23]that was mostly from our own trees and only 100 gallons of heating oil. [05:34.71]At that point I began thinking seriously about quitting my job and starting to freelance.The timing was terrible. [05:44.14]By then,Shawn and Amy,our oldest girls were attending expensive Ivy League schools [05:51.82]and we had only a few thousand dollars in the bank.Yet we kept coming back to the same question: [05:59.52]Will there ever be a better time?The answer,decidedly,was no, [06:05.71]and so--with my employer's blessings and half a year's pay in accumulated benefits in my pocket--off I went. [06:14.57]9 There have been a few anxious moments since then,but on balance things have gone much better [06:22.30]than we had any right to expect.For various stories of mine,I've crawled into black-bear dens for Sports Illustrated, [06:31.84]hitched up dogsled racing teams for Smithsonian magazine,checked out the Lake Champlain "monster" [06:40.14]for Science Digest,and canoed through the Boundary Waters wilderness area of Minnesota for Destinations. [06:48.92]10 I'm not making anywhere near as much money as I did when I was employed full time, [06:54.90]but now we don't need as much either.I generate enough income [07:01.28]to handle our$600-a-month mortgage payments plus the usual expenses for a family like ours. [07:09.19]That includes everything from music lessons and dental bills to car repairs and college costs. [07:16.22]When it comes to insurance,we have a poor man's major-medical policy. [07:22.12]We have to pay the first$500 of any medical fees for each member of the family. [07:28.65]It picks up 80% of the costs beyond that.Although we are stuck with paying minor expenses,our premium is low [07:38.21]--only$560 a year--and we are covered against catastrophe.Aside from that [07:51.98]But we are setting aside$2,000 a year in an IRA. [07:57.28]11 We've been able to make up the difference in income by cutting back [08:02.51]without appreciably lowering our standard of living.We continue to dine out once or twice a month, [08:09.87]but now we patronize local restaurants instead of more expensive places in the city. [08:16.72]We still attend the opera and ballet in Milwaukee but only a few times a year. [08:22.86]We eat less meat,drink cheaper wine and see fewer movies.Extravagant Christmases are a memory, [08:32.18]and we combine vacations with story assignments.... [08:37.07]12 I suspect not everyone who loves the country would be happy living the way we do. [08:43.47]It takes a couple of special qualities.One is a tolerance for solitude.Because we are so busy and on such a tight budget, [08:54.02]we don't entertain much.During the growing season there is no time for socializing anyway. [09:01.65]Jim and Emily are involved in school activities,but they too spend most of their time at home. [09:09.15]13 The other requirement is energy--a lot of it.The way to make self-sufficiency work on a small scale [09:17.71]is to resist the temptation to buy a tractor and other expensive laborsaving devices. [09:24.77]Instead,you do the work yourself.The only machinery we own [09:31.19](not counting the lawn mower) is a little three-horsepower rotary cultivator and a 16-inch chain saw. [09:39.74]14 How much longer we'll have enough energy to stay on here is anybody's guess--perhaps for quite a while, [09:47.28]perhaps not.When the time comes,we'll leave with a feeling of sorrow but also with a sense of pride [09:55.25]at what we've been able to accomplish.We should make a fair profit on the sale of the place,too. [10:02.62]We've invested about$35,000 of our own money in it,and we could just about double that if we sold today. [10:11.45]But this is not a good time to sell.Once economic conditions improve, [10:18.03]however,demand for farms like ours should be strong again. [10:23.36]15 We didn't move here primarily to earn money though.We came because we wanted to improve the quality of our lives. [10:31.77]When I watch Emily collecting eggs in the evening, [10:36.06]fishing with Jim on the river or enjoying an old-fashioned picnic in the orchard with the entire family, [10:43.37]I know we've found just what we were looking for. [10:48.49]get by frustration suburban contentment [10:55.41]過(guò)得去 挫折 郊外的 滿足 [11:02.33]honey make it canoe ski [11:05.77]蜂蜜 成功 獨(dú)木舟 滑雪 [11:09.20]skate sunset low hawk [11:12.04]溜冰 日落 哞哞叫 鷹 [11:14.87]deer haul firewood sled [11:18.14]鹿 搬運(yùn) 木柴 雪橇 [11:21.40]retile long-overdue improvement supplement [11:25.75]重新用瓦蓋 拖了很久的 改善 補(bǔ)充 [11:30.10]indoor spray orchard barn [11:33.13]室內(nèi)的 噴灑 果園 谷倉(cāng) [11:36.16]chick typewriter freelance pursue [11:40.33]小雞 打字機(jī) 自由撰稿人 追求 [11:44.50]household oversee beehive organ [11:48.10]家庭 看管 蜂窩 風(fēng)琴 [11:51.71]stack wicked overflow swamp [11:54.16]將…堆起來(lái) 邪惡的 泛濫 淹沒(méi) [11:56.62]freezer cherry raspberry asparagus [12:00.16]冰柜 櫻桃 樹(shù)莓 蘆筍 [12:03.70]bean canned-goods cupboard plum [12:07.01]豆 罐裝品 碗櫥 李子 [12:10.33]jelly squash pumpkin get through [12:13.56]果子凍 南瓜屬植物 南瓜 通過(guò) [12:16.78]gallon at that point decidedly [12:21.00]加侖 就在那時(shí) 肯定地 [12:25.22]on balance den illustrate hitch [12:28.84]總的來(lái)說(shuō) 獸穴 舉例說(shuō)明 用挽具套住 [12:32.46]dogsled monster digest boundary [12:36.39]狗拉雪橇 怪物 文摘 邊界 [12:40.32]wilderness generate dental [12:42.74]荒野 形成 牙的 [12:45.15]insurance policy fee pick up [12:48.48]保險(xiǎn) 政策 費(fèi) 付帳 [12:51.81]minor premium aside from retirement [12:55.93]較少的 保險(xiǎn)費(fèi) 除了 退休 [13:00.04]cut back appreciably lower dine out [13:03.87]減少 可觀地 降低 外出吃飯 [13:07.70]patronize ballet extravagant suspect [13:10.90]光顧 芭蕾舞 奢侈的 相信 [13:14.10]solitude budget requirement scale [13:17.78]孤獨(dú) 預(yù)算 要求 規(guī)模 [13:21.46]resist temptation device [13:24.98]抵制 誘惑 裝置 [13:28.49]horsepower rotary cultivator [13:30.95]馬力 旋轉(zhuǎn)的 耕耘機(jī) [13:35.53]利潤(rùn) 投資 主要地

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