全新版大学英语综合教程3课文翻译unit 1

在草莓地除草，

还要宰杀家禽。

前一阵子我和桑 迪不得不翻修后屋顶。

过些时候，四个孩子中的两个小的，

16

岁的吉米和

13

岁的埃米莉，会帮着我 一起把拖了很

久没修的室外厕所修葺一下，

那是专为室外干活修 建的。

这个月晚些时候，

我们要给果树喷

洒药水，要油漆谷仓，要给菜园播种，要赶在新的小鸡运到之前清扫鸡舍。

5

In

between

such

chores,

I

manage

to

spend 50

to

60

hours

a

week

at

the

typewriter

or

doing reporting for the freelance articles I sell to magazines and newspapers. Sandy, meanwhile,

pursues

her

own

demanding

schedule.

Besides

the

usual

household

routine,

she

oversees

the

garden

and

beehives,

bakes

bread,

cans

and

freezes,

drives

the

kids

to

their

music

lessons,

practices with them, takes organ lessons on her own, does research and typing for me, writes an

article herself now and then, tends the flower beds, stacks a little wood and delivers the eggs.

There is, as the old saying goes, no rest for the wicked on a place like this -- and not much for the

virtuous

either.

在这些活计之间，我每周要抽空花五、六十个小时，不是打字撰文，

就是为作为自由撰稿人投给报刊的文章进行采访。

桑迪则有她自己繁忙的工作日程。

除了日

常的家务，她还照管菜园和蜂房，烘烤面包，将食品装罐、冷 藏，开车送孩子学音乐，和他

们一起练习，自己还要上风琴课，为我做些研究工作并打字 ，

自己有时也写写文章，还要侍

弄花圃，堆摞木柴、运送鸡蛋。 正如老话说的那样，在这种情形之下，坏人不得闲――贤德

之人也歇不了。

6

None of us will ever forget our first winter. We were buried under five feet of snow from

December

through

March.

While

one

storm

after

another

blasted

huge

drifts

up

against

the

house and barn, we kept warm inside burning our own wood, eating our own apples and loving

every minute of it.

我们谁 也不会忘记第一年的冬天。从

12

月一直到

3

月底，我们都被深达

5

英尺的积

雪困着。暴风雪肆虐，一场接着一场，积雪厚厚地覆盖着屋子和谷仓，而室内，我们用自 己

砍伐的木柴烧火取暖，吃着自家种植的苹果，温馨快乐每一分钟。

7

When spring came, it brought two floods. First the river overflowed, covering much of our

land for weeks. Then the growing season began, swamping us under wave after wave of produce.

Our

freezer

filled

up with

cherries, raspberries,

strawberries,

asparagus,

peas,

beans

and

corn.

Then

our

canned-goods

shelves

and

cupboards

began

to

grow

with

preserves,

tomato

juice,

grape

juice,

plums,

jams

and

jellies. Eventually,

the

basement

floor

disappeared

under

piles

of

potatoes, squash and pumpkins, and the barn began to fill with apples and pears. It was amazing.

开春后，

有过两次泛滥。

一次是河水外溢，

我们不少田地被淹了几个星期。

接着一次

是生长季节到了，

一波又一波的农产品潮涌而来，

弄得我们应 接不暇。

我们的冰箱里塞满了

樱桃、蓝莓、草莓、芦笋、豌豆、 青豆和玉米。接着我们存放食品罐的架子上、柜橱里也开

始堆满一罐罐的腌渍食品，有番 茄汁、葡萄汁、李子、果酱和果冻。最后，地窖里遍地是大

堆大堆的土豆、西葫芦、南瓜 ，谷仓里也储满了苹果和梨。真是太美妙了。

8

The

next

year

we

grew

even

more

food

and

managed

to

get

through

the

winter

on

firewood that was mostly from our own trees and only 100 gallons of heating oil. At that point I

began thinking seriously about quitting my job and starting to freelance. The timing was terrible.

By then, Shawn and Amy, our oldest girls were attending expensive Ivy League schools and we

had only a few thousand dollars in the bank. Yet we kept coming back to the same question: Will

there

ever

be

a

better

time?

The

answer,

decidedly,

was

no,

and

so

--

with

my

employer's

blessings and half a year's pay in accumulated benefits in my pocket -- off I went.

第二年 我们种了更多的作物，

差不多就靠着从自家树林砍斫的木柴以及仅仅

100

加仑

的燃油过了冬。

其时，

我开始认真考虑起辞了职去从事自由撰稿的事来。

时机选得实在 太差。

当时，

两个大的女儿肖恩和埃米正在费用很高的常春藤学 校上学，

而我们只有几千美金的银

行存款。

但我们一再回到一个老问题上来：

真的会有更好的时机吗？答案无疑是否定的。

于

是，带着老板的祝福，口袋里揣着作为累积津贴的半年薪水，我走 了。

9

There

have

been

a

few

anxious

moments

since

then,

but

on

balance

things

have

gone

much

better

than

we

had

any

right

to

expect.

For

various

stories

of

mine,

I've

crawled

into

black-bear dens for Sports Illustrated, hitched up dogsled racing teams for Smithsonian magazine,

checked out the Lake Champlain

Waters wilderness area of Minnesota for Destinations.

那以后有过一些焦虑的时刻，

但总的来说，

情况比我们料想的要好得多。

为了写那些

内容各不相同的文章，我为《体育画报》爬进过黑熊窝；为《史密森期刊》替 参赛的一组组

狗套上过雪橇；为《科学文摘》调查过尚普兰湖水怪的真相；为《终点》杂 志在明尼苏达划

着小舟穿越美、加边界水域内的公共荒野保护区。

10

I'm not making anywhere near as much money as I did when I was employed full time,

but now we don't need as much either. I generate enough income to handle our $$600-a-month

mortgage payments plus the usual expenses for a family like ours. That includes everything from

music lessons and dental bills to car repairs and college costs. When it comes to insurance, we

have a poor man's major-medical policy. We have to pay the first $$500 of any medical fees for

each member of the family. It picks up 80% of the costs beyond that. Although we are stuck with

paying minor expenses, our premium is low

-- only $$560 a year

-- and we are covered against

catastrophe. Aside from that and the policy on our two cars at $$400 a year, we have no other

insurance. But we are setting aside $$2,000 a year in an IRA.

我挣的钱远比不上担任全职工作时 的收入，

可如今我们需要的钱也没有过去多。

我挣

的钱足以应付每月

600

美金的房屋贷款按揭以及一 家人的日常开销。

那些开销包括了所有支

出，如音乐课学费、牙 医账单、汽车维修以及大学费用等等。至于保险，我们买了一份低收

入者的主要医疗项目 保险。

我们需要为每一位家庭成员的任何一项医疗费用支付最初的

500

美金。医疗保险则支付超出部分的

80

％。虽然我们仍要支付小部分医疗费用，但我们的保

险费也低

< br>--

每年只要

560

美金

--

而我们给自己生大病保了险。除了这一保险项目，以及两辆

汽车每年

400

美金的保险，我们就没有其他 保险了。不过我们每年留出

2000

美元入个人退

休金账户。

11

We've been able to make up the difference in income by cutting back without appreciably

lowering

our

standard

of

living.

We

continue

to

dine

out

once

or

twice

a

month,

but

now

we

patronize local restaurants instead of more expensive places in the city. We still attend the opera

and ballet in Milwaukee but only a few times a year. We eat less meat, drink cheaper wine and

see fewer movies. Extravagant Christmases are a memory, and we combine vacations with story

assignments...

我们通过节约开支而又不明显降低生活水准的方式来弥补收入 差额。

我们每个月仍出

去吃一两次饭，

不过现在我们光顾的是当地餐馆，

而不是城里的高级饭店。

我们 仍去密尔沃

基听歌剧看芭蕾演出，不过一年才几次。我们肉吃得少了，酒喝得便宜了，电 影看得少了。

铺张的圣诞节成为一种回忆，我们把完成稿约作为度假的一部分……

12

I suspect not everyone who loves the country would be happy living the way we do. It

takes a couple of special qualities. One is a tolerance for solitude. Because we are so busy and on

such

a

tight

budget, we

don't

entertain

much.

During the

growing

season

there

is

no

time

for

socializing

anyway.

Jim

and Emily

are

involved

in

school

activities,

but

they

too

spend

most

of

their time at home.

我想，

不 是所有热爱乡村的人都会乐意过我们这种生活的。

这种生活需要一些特殊的

素质。

其一是耐得住寂寞。

由于我们如此忙碌，

手头又紧，

我们很少请客。

在作物生长季节 ，

根本就没工夫参加社交活动。

吉米和埃米莉虽然参加学校的各 种活动，

但他俩大多数时间也

呆在家里。

13

The other requirement is energy -- a lot of it. The way to make self-sufficiency work on a

small scale is to resist the temptation to buy a tractor and other expensive laborsaving devices.

Instead, you do the work yourself. The only machinery we own (not counting the lawn mower) is

a little three-horsepower rotary cultivator and a 16-inch chain saw.

另一项 要求是体力――相当大的体力。

小范围里实现自给自足的途径是抵制诱惑，

不

去购置拖拉机和其他昂贵的节省劳力的机械。

相反 ，你要自己动手。我们仅有的机器（不包

括割草机）是一台

3< /p>

马力的小型旋转式耕耘机以及一架

16

英 寸的链锯。

14

How much longer we'll have enough energy to stay on here is anybody's guess -- perhaps

for quite a while, perhaps not. When the time comes, we'll leave with a feeling of sorrow but also

with a sense of pride at what we've been able to accomplish. We should make a fair profit on the

sale of the place, too. We've invested about $$35,000 of our own money in it, and we could just

about double that if we sold today. But this is not a good time to sell. Once economic conditions

improve, however, demand for farms like ours should be strong again.

没人知 道我们还能有精力在这里再呆多久

--

也许呆很长一阵子，也许 不是。到走的时

候，

我们会怆然离去，

但也会为自己所做的一切深感自豪。

我们把农场出售也会赚相当大一

笔钱。

我们自己在农场投入了约

35

，

000

美金的资金，

要是现在售出 的话价格差不多可以翻

一倍。

不过现在不是出售的好时机。

但是一旦经济形势好转，

对我们这种农场的需求又会增

多。

15

We didn't move here primarily to earn money though. We came because we wanted to

improve the quality of our lives. When I watch Emily collecting eggs in the evening, fishing with

Jim on the river or enjoying an old- fashioned picnic in the orchard with the entire family, I know

we've found just what we were looking for.