歷年的日歷我們都保留著，上面每一個空白欄里，雖寥寥數語，卻都是我們對當日生活的點滴感悟。小小的泛黃的日歷，承載著我們牧場的歷史，也記述著我們的生活。

By Sue Wunder

歐陽菲 選注

When I read of James Herriot’s death on Feb. 23, 1994, I put aside chores for a time and paid my respects. Among the daily notations of calvings, cows in heat, breedings, and milk weights, a more carefully penned “Farewell James Herriot” fills in one wintry space of that year’s milk-room calendar.[1]

It felt like the right place to remember the Yorkshire vet who tended animals on small farms like ours before and after becoming a popular author.[2] The calendar – a safe, accessible repository[3] for the all-important details and noteworthy events connected to running our dairy – had presence. It hung out of splash range of the sinks, just above the countertop where we set gloves and coffee cups.[4]

It was impossible not to look over the month on display, and hard to resist flipping[5] back to previous months as I breakfasted. The color photos of broad-muscled Belgians, Percherons and shires seemed to prime us for the day’s work, especially if it involved our own draft animals.[6]

The large date squares on this calendar allowed several brief daily entries[7]. The milk shipment, in pounds, occupied the lower right corner, leaving ample space for other jottings.[8] One April 1, for example, was triply[9] notable: “Gwen’s birthday,” “potatoes and onions in,” and “Red is bred.” A single run-on sentence sprawled across Nov. 25 and 26 of that year: “Geese moving in wave after wave, what a beautiful sight!”[10]

Most annual, seasonal, or singular[11] events that captured our attention found their place on the calendar. The spring arrival of the cowbirds, swifts, orioles, and swallows; October’s first snow flurry; sandhill cranes alighting to rest; a favorite cow’s new heifer; my son’s first day in grammar school; a beloved author’s passing in a small North England town.[12]

We saved the calendars from past years. As we gradually moved near the break-even point with our small, low-input operation, different months took on distinct personalities.[13] January in Indiana is a quiet month of unpredictable weathers. Its most dependable element was Jezibel, a small brown Jersey who obstinately calved in the opening days of the New Year—whatever the weather.[14]

By February we began recording harvests from the sugar maples and the cows simultaneously on the calendar.[15] The days flowed by on gallons of sap and pounds of milk.[16]

In March, we began to think of the gardens and heavy work to come. “Chicks hatch” on the 9th of one year, replacing some of the laying hens we’d lost over the winter. “Geese and crane” canopy across the farm, pushing north, and we “change the oil and filters on the tractors.”[17]

By April we were up and running. We “plow the gardens” and, one spring day “plant clover, timothy, and lespedeza.”[18] The “redstart[19] returns” on April 26 that year, after a six-year absence. The “barn swallows arrive,” patching their old nests.[20] In the latter part of the month, we began to find morel mushrooms[21]. And, of course, sometime in April “Jezibel is bred.”

The morel sometimes lingered into May, when haying began.[22] One year, we noted three breedings in quick succession that month. On the 28th, as the bull rested, the “kingbird[23] returned.”

The high summer months bear few entries unrelated in some way to haying or rain, the one break from cutting, raking, baling, and stacking.[24]

Each year the “swallows leave” in August, and Tim began another school year.

As September passed, the last cuttings were raked and baled, and the barn loft is filled to capacity.[25] “Found ginseng” spoke of a leisure rarely enjoyed in the summer.[26]

Things quickened in October, a month of almost electric expectancy for us. On Oct. 26, 1992, we completed the stone chimney and fireplace for the log cabin we’d built among the sugar maples, and on the 16th lit the first fire in our new hearth.[27] “Doc and Jim arrive” on Oct. 14, 1993, ushering in[28] a new era on the farm. The geese again arched overhead, moving south. The “last monarch” left and the “first snow” sifted mutely down among the brilliant leaves.[29]

Geese sightings multiplied[30] in November. We marked their annual passing on the calendar on and around the day “fall taxes are due[31].”

Time slowed in December, whose calendar entries chronicled late migrating geese; one day carried a reminder to “reorder calendar.” There were the usual records of milk weights and calvings. But no month was entirely routine. On Dec. 15, 1993, Charlie penned in flourishing letters, “Farm paid in full,” surely the signal entry of the decade. We celebrated Christmas that year with a special sense of grace, our 80 acres beautiful, and, the calendar noted, enveloped in “snow.”

Vocabulary

1. notation: 注釋，記錄；calving: 為母牛接生；wintry: 冬天似的，寒冷的。

2. Yorkshire: 約克郡，英格蘭一郡名；vet: 獸醫。

3. repository: 存放處，倉庫。

4. 它掛在洗滌槽的防濺擋板的外邊，就在我們放手套和咖啡杯的工作臺的上方。

5. flip: 快速翻動。

6. 肌肉強健的比利時種馬、佩爾什馬和夏爾馬的彩色圖片似乎為我們一天的工作注入了動力，尤其是如果那些關乎我們自己耕畜的話。draft animal: =draught animal，耕畜，役畜。

7. entry: 登記，登錄。

8. ample: 充足的；jotting: 簡短的筆記，略記。

9. triply: 三倍地。

10. run-on: 連寫的；sprawl: 蔓延，拓展。

11. singular: 單一的。

12. 燕八哥、雨燕、黃鶯和燕子春日的來臨，十月的第一場驟雪，沙丘鶴飛落下來休憩，最喜歡的牛新生了只小牛犢，我兒子在文法學校的第一天，一位鐘愛的作家在北英格蘭小鎮辭世。

13. 隨著我們小型、低投入的企業漸漸達到收支平衡點時，不同的月份都呈現了各自同的特征。

14. 其最穩定的因素是Jezibel——一頭棕色的澤西種小乳牛，她固執地要在新年的頭幾天生產——不管天氣如何。

15. sugar maple: 糖楓；simultaneously: 同時地。

16. gallon: （液量單位）加侖；sap: 樹液。

17. crane: 鶴；canopy:（用以遮蓋的）頂棚；filter: 濾器；tractor: 拖拉機。

18. clover: 三葉草；timothy: 梯牧草；lespedeza: 胡枝子。

19. redstart: 紅尾鴝。

20. barn swallow: 家燕；patch: 修補。

21. morel mushroom: 羊肚菌。?

22. linger: 逗留；haying: 割干草。

23. kingbird: 美洲食蜂鹟。

24. high summer: 盛夏；rake: 用耙子耙集；bale: 包裝成捆；stack: 堆放。

25. 九月過完了，最后一批割下來的草被耙集、打包成捆，將谷倉的閣樓堆得滿滿的。

26. “發現西洋參”昭示著在夏日里難得一享的悠閑。

27. log cabin: 小木屋；hearth: 爐床，壁爐邊。

28. usher in: 引領。

29. monarch: 君主；sift: 撒，撒布。

30. multiply: 增加。

31. fall taxes are due: 需要繳秋稅了。

（來源：英語學習雜志）