It’s weird — every couple of mornings, I hear the girl upstairs wailing and crying and screaming “I hate you” to her boyfriend. Every night I hear their television, and what sometimes sounds like a first-person shooter video game. Dan hears their TV at 4 AM when he gets up to go to the bakery. Then there is the problem of their two kittens, which somehow are always escaping from their apartment. I don’t know if they’re neutered, and they don’t wear collars. I worry that they’re going to, uh, be impregnated, or get run over. When they haven’t escaped, the meow mournfully out the windows, pining for freedom. Let’s be frank: I am getting fed up with the neighbors. What’s the good of living in the country if you can’t have a little peace and quiet?

The good of living in the country, I’ll tell you, is working on the farm. Our CSA mandates two hours worth of work for each adult member. It’s our first year as members, and I still feel a little like I’m trespassing on someone’s property when I go over there — it’s such a tight-knit little community with lots of moms and kids and old friends hugging in between rows of sunflowers. To get more comfortable, I thought I’d sign up to really work. I showed up this morning at eight to be a “harvest helper.” What that meant, I didn’t know. My task, I soon found out, was to wash the veggies as they were hauled in by other harvest helpers. What a great job! Crate after crate of kale, chard, and lettuce had to be dunked in a huge tub of cold water and stacked neatly. I moved through the task with a combination of efficiency and Zen-like calm. There was a cool breeze blowing across the field, and the sun shone through the trees on my back. Later, I used a spray hose to wash down beets and carrots, lugging the heavy, dripping crates back and forth from the root vegetable cleaning table to where they dripped dry in the shade. Finally, it was ten AM. I was drenched, muddy, and pretty content.