I'm just so curious as to what people did back in the day to stave off the existential horror.
Did they just think slower or something? 'Cos otherwise farmers would have to be freaking smart. All of that time spent doing nothing but philosophizing and leading a cow around a paddock.
Farming actually takes up a lot of time. Like, a lot of time. And there's a lot of shit that has to be done right now, as in, not on Tuesday, not in the evening, yes, I don't care that it's five in the morning, get the fuck up and do it. So I guess they did philosophize, and a lot of period literature will tell you just that, but they were sort of busy otherwise.
Modern day farming to me has seemed like "There are sheep. Ride through the paddock, counting the sheep. Do you still have the same amount of sheep as you did yesterday? Hooray. Time to turn in." (*~30days)*10months. Month 1 and 6 are 'Wildly attempt to find passing freelance shearers who can sheer/crutch the sheep, along with a freelance woolworker who can grade the wool. Work in shed. Put wool in big press. Press wool into bales. Label bales. Truck wool away, get paid a pittance.
... There are sheep'
The excitement to be found in farm work is when the old (older the better) farm equipment inevitably breaks down, you have a few afternoons which you may spend fixing it, plus a few weeks ordering the parts to be airdropped to your fucknowhere piece of land.
I had spent exactly 18 years on a farm (albeit only really able to understand for the latter ones) and I still haven't yet seen a reason for the 'up at dawn' preference farmers seem to have.
Other than a heat thing, plus I guess livestock in stockades are more docile when they're bleary.
If you want to know about Crop farming... Well... 'Man holding piece of string' has nothing on 'man driving giant car up and down a mile-long paddock, doing ten yard rows'.
Like, claim-ownership-over-other-people-so-they-farm-and-you-don't-have-to hard.
I have mentioned this I think a thousand times but it is so goddamn interesting to me for some reason that I continually mention it again. 'Stations' back in the olden days were when a person owned so much land that nobody could get Into their land in order to work in a day. So they built villages to keep their workers in - but the villages still belonged to them.
So the multiple farmhands who worked on this station all paid rent to the station head, were fed by the station cook, received mail from the station post-office, bought their sundries from the station shoppe, and got pissed at the station pub.
Who needs to own someone if you can own their entire source of income and their means of spending it?
So I suppose that one nice thing about me having to work is that I'd have less free time. I mean, weekend is the worst time of the week for me.
I have so many games on steam and the only thing keeping me from playing them all is Ennui.
Plus, I guess, MMO's.
I dunno, I would regard parents suddenly and loudly shouting my name in order to get my attention a very normal and everyday occurrence.
I mean, the shouting should technically be necessary because of the aforementioned power tools.