Dead Sheep and Deadlines: A Writer’s Day on the Farm

A friend of mine recently sent me Ian Fleming’s famous daily routine, asking if my day looked anything like his. The author of the James Bond novels lived on an elegant estate in Jamaica, where the world came to his door and it seemed he punched out a bestseller every few weeks.

His day started at 7:30 with a quick dip in the ocean, then a leisurely breakfast on the terrace. He wrote 1,500 words, then paused to snorkel in azure blue waters and look for lobsters. He returned to the terrace for a seafood lunch and a few pink gins. Then a nap and another 500 words, one more swim and a few “powerful drinks” on the terrace before dinner with friends and bed at 10:30. Rinse and repeat.

“Sounds just like you, doesn’t it?” quipped my friend.

Yes and no. Perhaps not quite so idyllic, although I, too, live in a beautiful setting, in the lee of the Niagara Escarpment, within sight of the azure blue waters of Georgian Bay. This morning I rose just as Fleming did at 7:30, but there was no swim. We do have a duck pond, but the waters where ducks swim regularly are more emerald than azure and are not recommended for bathing. 

At the barn I discovered a sheep had died during the night and would need to be buried. An adult sheep weighs 175 pounds, which is over the limit my doctor has set for dead lifts. Fortunately, I have a loader tractor and was able to ferry it to the farm’s cemetery in the orchard. But with the temperature hovering in the mid-30s there would be no time for breakfast, leisurely or otherwise. I began straightaway to chip a hole in the heavy clay with a round mouth shovel and a crowbar. By mid-morning I had punched a sheep-sized hole nearly three feet deep when the shovel handle broke. I went back to the house to find a replacement.

I ducked into the office to check the morning mail and found a plaintive note from my editor wondering if there was any chance of getting my column anytime soon, because the illustrator enjoys having more than 24 hours to think of an appropriate theme before the magazine deadline crashes in on her. 

There was also a message on the screen from a publisher in Los Angeles who said she had just read my latest book (a reflection on the winding path that brought me to this place in rural Ontario) and it reminded her of “the fast-paced thrillers of writers like John Grisham and James Patterson. Could we connect about your next work?” she asked. This was startling, being the first time in 50 years anyone had admired the speed of my writing. Of course, this was just an AI-generated marketing message, but still, it made me doubt the future of a technology that can’t distinguish between me and John Grisham. Perhaps this was a theme that should be explored further, if I ever got back to the keyboard.

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A call from my wife from the upstairs window snapped me back to the fast-paced life of a writer: “The damn donkeys are chasing the pigs again!” 

I caught a glimpse of the pigs hot-footing it up the gully on the south side of the barn, squeezing through the electric fence and into my neighbour’s field of corn. I knew better than to follow them because the only thing that will bring pigs out of a cornfield is a jumbo box of Timbits. I had to go into town anyway to get a new shovel handle and perhaps a bottle of pink gin.

By day’s end, I had buried the sheep, coaxed the pigs back to their pen, and filed my column, but the bestseller had made no noticeable progress. I was nibbling the last of the birthday cake Timbits when my friend joined me on the terrace to enjoy the sunset. He consoled me by noting that Fleming’s schedule might sound wonderful, but the smoking, drinking and leisurely pace eventually did take their toll.

“You have to remember that by the time he was your age, he’d been dead for 20 years. Maybe just keep doing what you’re doing.”