Forget taking the magazine quiz “Are you and your mate a good match?” I suggest instead that you and your beloved go outside and build a sow shed together in the freezing rain, as it coats the tools, the wood, the metal roofing, and both of you in a thin layer of ice. That should determine pretty quickly your compatibility and the mettle of your relationship. Trust me, I know.

A blowing, biting, freezing rain is what we’re working in on this particular day. A real Alberta Clipper, the system arrived with full force right off the northern plains into our small East Tennessee valley. It’s midmorning, two hours since we headed outside to work, and the mercury has not budged from the 28 degrees Fahrenheit of sunrise. Squalls of horizontal icy rain alternate with spitting snow, ripping across the pastures and our faces at stinging speeds. The sun makes a brief appearance before wisely ducking for cover.

My beloved suggests we do the same, so we break for the house and a cup of hot tea. We are under a tight deadline, hustling to finish building a three-sided shelter before a new, very pregnant sow is delivered tomorrow. Much as we might prefer it, this is one project that cannot be put off for a sunny day.

When we moved to our fifty-acre farm a quarter-century ago, I set for myself a personal work goal: Find joy in doing the everyday. I jotted the goal down on a scrap of paper and taped it above my desk. It is a written injunction whose achievement at times has felt idealistic – especially on mornings like this, as we find ourselves together at the top of a wind-pummeled hill pasture, trying desperately to keep our fingers and toes and faces from freezing in our scramble to erect the farrowing hut before the sow decides to give birth.

The tea break has come at a good time. The mood out in the field had been quickly deteriorating into one of sullen irritation. (This can happen, of course, even in the strongest of relationships.) Truth be told, though we both love being outdoors and working hard, even in inclement weather, this morning’s ice and wind have been particularly wearing on the spirit. Break over, we leave the comfort of our home and return once more to the pasture, where it is now, thankfully, snowing … for a moment anyway, before the freezing rain starts again. At this point we begin to laugh, giddy almost, at the work still to be completed amid these uncooperative elements.

When you take up farming, the work – both the doing and the thinking about it – has a way of seeping into every aspect of the idyllic rural life you might have imagined yourself leading. It occupies most waking moments, every day, week, month, and year. Sitting in your easy chair dreaming about the “simple life,” warm and comfortable with a book and a glass of whiskey is one thing. It is altogether something else to be coated in ice, getting on with the job at hand because you have no other choice.

To be clear, all of us nestled in the bosom of twenty-first-century modernity do have some choice in how our years get spent, and my beloved and I wholeheartedly chose this work, this farming life. To the man with the “finding joy” reminder scribbled above his desk, that means that if one day he finds himself with an ice-coated hammer in one hand and a clutch of 10d nails in the other while his partner waits with the next rough-cut oak board to be nailed and another angry squall rains frozen misery down on their heads, he should try, as hard as it may seem in the moment, to factor a little enjoyment and satisfaction into the work. He has been able to do so on most days, and today will be no different.

When you take up farming, the work has a way of seeping into every aspect of the idyllic rural life you might have imagined yourself leading.

We continue working throughout the day on the solid eight-by-ten-foot structure, breaking only for lunch (a quick bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich) and the occasional dash to the barn. Though the wind is still coming hard from the northwest, by afternoon the freezing rain of the morning has turned into a more acceptable steady snowfall. Come late afternoon, we hammer the last nail and pronounce the shelter complete. Satisfied with a job well done and in good spirits, we collect our tools and head to the house. (The sow, by the way, arrived at the farm on schedule the following day. Her newly completed shelter was full of dry bedding, which she apparently took as a sign: she farrowed eight piglets that night.)

In the evening we stoke the fire in the woodstove and relax in our armchairs, I with my whiskey, she with her hot tea, and talk over the day. We exchange apologies for any earlier irritability, share laughs as we commiserate about the miserable weather, and acknowledge our relief at having finished the farrowing hut. This talking over the day has served us well for the past twenty-five years. It is a ritual both morning and evening that gives us a structured chance to discuss joint efforts and individual projects.

The work carried out on a farm – the outbuildings and fences erected, the crops grown and harvested, the livestock raised and sold, birthed and butchered – accretes in layers that eventually become evidence of how a life has been spent. Like a faded trailblaze on an oak, there are telltale signs – additions on a barn or peculiar jogs in a fence – that speak in a coded language a careful observer can decipher. A tight fence line, a solidly built farrowing hut, or an evenly sown field is likely to go unnoticed by anyone but a fellow farmer, who will know what has gone into those tasks and will appreciate their execution when they are done well.

Occasionally we host couples who have requested a tour of the farm. Typically, they are starting or planning to start their own farm or homestead. Showing them the hogs is always one of my favorite parts of the visit, and when I do I inevitably recount that memorable day of ice, snow, wind, and the building of the sow shelter. I’ll say that how two people work together on such a challenging task will define their future and their farm’s success. I’ll say that, for us, the work we’ve done together is the glue that has bound us to the land and to each other – and that satisfaction in working well together and completing a job we are both proud of has naturally followed.

I guess I’m a slow learner: it has taken me all these years to realize that the note above my desk, Find joy in doing the everyday, has it backward. As it turns out, I do not need to go looking for joy. If the farm work is done well, whether alone or with companionable help, joy will seek me out.

Today the sow shelter we constructed on that frigid winter’s day some fifteen years ago continues to serve its purpose. It still hosts the occasional sow and piglets. These days, a family of skunks has found it convenient to den seasonally under the floor. But the time has come that it needs a new workday. A corner post has weakened, and the floor boards have begun to sag. I am sure we will get around to the repairs eventually, squeezing them in among the endless other projects on the farm. This time, hopefully, the work will be done on a sunny spring day.