Rain Season 2016

The rain season this year was surprising and memorable for us. I remember seeing a long-term weather forecast from the Thai government meteorological department saying that the rains would be somewhat more plentiful than usual this season and also a bit later in coming. This would be due to the diminishing El Nino event in the Pacific and a developing La Nina later on. Everything turned out exactly as predicted! Still, we never imagined such an abundance of water filling our ponds to the brim and then to over-flowing. Here's how it happened:

Flooded fields and the outlet channel

Because of some fairly heavy rainfall late in the growing season, neighboring farmers found their rice paddies filling up with an excess of water just when the crops were reaching maturity. In accord with long tradition, they opened channels in their dykes to drain the water into the next (lower) field even if it belonged to someone else. Thus, a chain reaction happened in which all the excess water for a few km. around made it's way to our land which is the lowest in the area.

We watched as our ponds filled and then overflowed. I had to quickly dig a deep ditch from one pond to the other to guide the flood to the old drainage channel which farmers long ago had built as an outlet for times such as this. The system worked perfectly; the flood was contained at a reasonable level and then it slowly began to drain.

Harvesting rice

By the time the crop was ready to be cut we could get into the muddy field. The photo at the right is misleading. I only helped a little bit.

On a couple of occasions we provided the midday meal for our neighbor and her friends who were doing the work. From the lunchtime conversations we gathered that they thought the harvest seemed rather poor. The grains were small. One lady thought this was because we had failed to apply synthetic fertilizer. They estimated that the yield would be only about 10 bags and that half of that would go to us just for the use of the land.

Eventually Ael was able to make it clear that we didn't want much rice at all. We were just happy to see the land used well and to learn through observation.

We weren't able to be there on the day that the small threshing machine arrived to separate the grain from the straw. It turned out that the yield was much better than expected; 26 bags!  In the end we received six bags and the farmers shared 20 bags of valuable "Riceberry" among themselves most of which will be saved to be planted next year. It was the most positive outcome we could imagine.

Best of all, this experience was a convincing demonstration of the success of organic methods.

Our organic whole grain "Riceberry"

The finished cooked rice is really delicious. It has a lovely aroma reminiscent of blackberries and vanilla. The dark bran is high in anti-oxidants and other nutrients.

Papaya, The Dependable Volunteer

Here in Northeast Thailand, we so commonly see Papaya plants growing around peoples' houses that it comes as a bit of a surprise to learn that papaya, Carica papaya, isn't native to Southeast Asia at all. It actually originated in tropical South/Central America and now it is grown throughout the tropical parts of the world. Here in Isaan, papaya has become an important element in the cuisine.

Somtam Lady

Roadside food shops both in the city and in rural villages feature the universally popular spicy papaya salad called "somtam" which is made with shredded unripe papaya along with a variety of other  ingredients including loads of fiery chilis (more on somtam below).
It's usually eaten with grilled fish or chicken and sticky rice. The shopkeeper on the left is mixing and bruising the salad ingredients in a large mortar and a heavy pestle.

Ael with ripening papaya

 The Papaya plant may be described as "tree-like", but I wouldn't call it a proper tree. The trunk or stem is large and tall, not really woody but rather fibrous and hollow. The leaves are large with a deeply notched palmate shape and grow directly out of the main trunk as do the flowers and fruit. Papaya plants are shallow rooted so they have a habit of flopping over in times of strong wind or heavy rain.

The fruit is large and abundant with a thin, dark green skin which changes to yellow and orange shades as the fruit ripens.
Ripe flesh is soft, smooth and moderately sweet with a beautiful bright orange color. The seeds are medium sized, hard and brown to black in color. We keep only the pure black ones to plant because they (I am told) are more likely to produce plants with both male and female flowers so the resulting plant will be self-pollinating.

We find that papaya plants grow very naturally wherever the seeds are dropped. We haven't had much success trying to start them in pots or to move them to a better location.

The particularly tall plant beside the house in the photo on the left is a good example. It was a volunteer which had grown from a seed remaining in composted kitchen waste.  I'm climbing up a long bamboo ladder to pick some of the fruit. This big plant lived for several years and gave us an abundance of fruit each year.

Papaya fruit is a rich source of valuable proteolytic enzymes, such as papain, chymopapain, caricain and glycyl endopeptidase, that can greatly aid in the digestive process. This is especially true of meals that contain meat or other concentrated forms of protein.


 


Papaya fruit (Carica papaya), Fresh,
Nutritive Value per 100 g.(Source: USDA National Nutrient data base)

Principle      Nutrient Value   % of RDA   

Energy           39K cal          2%
Carbohydrates      9.81 g         7.5%
Protein            0.61 g          1%
Total Fat          0.14 g         0.5%
Cholesterol         0 mg           0%
Dietary Fiber      1.80 g          4.5%
Vitamins
Folates              38 µg        9.5%
Niacin             0.338 mg       2%
Pantothenic acid   0.218 mg       4%
Pyridoxine         0.019 mg       1.5%
Riboflavin         0.032 mg       2.5%
Thiamin            0.027 mg       2%
Vitamin A           1094 IU       36%
Vitamin C           61.8 mg      103%
Vitamin E           0.73 mg        5%
Vitamin K            2.6 µg        2%
Electrolytes
Sodium                 3 mg        0%
Potassium            257 mg        5%
Minerals
Calcium               24 mg      2.5%
Iron                0.10 mg      1%
Magnesium             10 mg      2.5%
Phosphorus             5 mg      1%
Zinc                0.07 mg      0.5%
Phyto-nutrients
Carotene-ß           276 µg --
Crypto-xanthin-ß     761 µg --
Lutein-zeaxanthin     75 µg --

 

Here is a plate of fresh ingredients ready to go into the popular Thai papaya salad called somtam. The main heap in the middle is shredded unripe papaya with small chilis on top. On the right: small tomatoes and below, going clock-wise: hog plum, lime, and over on the left: garlic.
Three ingredients not shown are:
Pla ra; a flavoring made from small fish fermented in brine with rice bran. It goes into the somtam as a dark strong-smelling liquid.
Fish sauce; a clear brown salty liquid from a bottle.
Monosodium glutamate (which we don't recommend)
and (optional): sour tamarind, coconut sugar, peanuts, chopped green beans.

And here is the finished som-tam.

Arroy! (delicious!)

Arrival of the Monsoon

Since the beginning of May the weather has become gradually wetter, cloudier and cooler. It's a welcome relief from the severe heat we experienced during March and April. Some of the Southwest Monsoon moisture made all the way from the Indian ocean to drop its blessings here on the Korat Plateau, making everything green again.

For a while it looked as though we wouldn't be able to get our rice paddies planted because there wasn't enough rain to actually flood them. Without flooding, the rice will grow just fine but so will a variety of robust grasses and weeds which makes the crop hard to manage and harvest.

Then a good heavy rain came along and after that our neighbors arrived promptly to cultivate the muddy soil and to plant seedlings that they already had on hand. Ours are tiny fields by local standards but good for planting a special variety such as black rice

The harvest will belong to those who did the work although they will probably offer us a few bags in exchange for the use of the field.

Now the rice is coming up very well and it's pleasing to see how the land catches and holds the water at the right level for the rice. Any excess flows into our large pond for long term storage.
The farmer in me needed to see the paddy system functioning as it was designed to do.

When we acquired this land, we lacked the means to fill all the paddies for tree planting so we decided to keep this small field for rice production. Although rice monoculture is not ecologically ideal, it does provide a wetland habitat for small fish, frogs, snails, insects and birds so some biological diversity is maintained.

We've been concentrating more, however, on establishing our trees and larger plants, recently starting young banana plants, toddy palms (Borassus flabellifer), jatropha (Jatropha curcas), limes and more mango.

The seasonal return of the monsoon with much more generous rains this year has given us a feeling of deep respect for the resilience of the living earth and the persistence of the natural cycles.

Is industrial activity with all its CO2 emissions really disrupting climate stability? Well, probably it is, but we can't honestly say that we see evidence of that in this part of the world. Perhaps the greenhouse effect is more severe in the polar and temperate regions of the planet.

Nevertheless, it's clear that we humans must learn to change the way we live, adjusting our relationship with the natural processes of life so that our behavior is less exploitative; more friendly and mutually supportive. It doesn't mean giving up anything truly valuable. All the gadgetry of our industrially modified environment may seem valuable and difficult to give up but that's just because we have become habituated to the complex apparatus we have created, dependent upon it and culturally imprinted to believe in its value.

In reality, it contributes little or nothing to our deep peace of mind and over-all well-being.

Illustration of a poem by Tao Yuanming

Water!

Robson Valley, Canada

Our Earth is watery planet and the presence of water here is one of the essential conditions for the existence and evolution of life as we know it. 

Powered by both the sun's energy and gravity's pull, the wonderful circulation of water through the biosphere gives sustenance to every form of life. From the huge reservoir of the oceans, water vapor rises into the atmosphere, condenses as cloud and eventually falls as rain or snow. A lot of water is stored in solid form at high elevations or in the polar regions. Some water infiltrates deep into the earth to be stored in aquifers. As water flows back to the sea, it circulates through the cells of all living things. It rises in the sap of plants and is offered in the juice of fruit. Water that was once in a cloud, once frozen in a glacier, once deep in the sea, is circulating in your blood right now.

Water is more abundant in some parts of the world than it is in others and in places where liquid water is scarce, so is life. Life began in a watery medium and developed in the ancient seas long before living organisms ventured onto the dry land. Our bodies are about 60% water (by weight) and without water, we become dehydrated and cannot live for long. Everyone should understand how essential water is to our lives. Our food crops need water, we need to wash with water and of course, we need to drink it.

For the last few months our life has revolved around the need for water. We are scrounging and saving water, we are hauling water, pumping water, distributing water to our trees and plants, filtering water to drink, and trying to keep own bodies hydrated as well.                     

In the shade of our back porch

Here in Northeast Thailand, afternoon temperatures have usually reached the mid-to-high 30s and sometimes above 40 degrees C with no rain to speak of. The temperature in the house (no aircon) is generally about the same as it is in the shade outside. Of course conditions outdoors exposed to direct sunlight are much hotter, putting stress on the body's ability to release excess heat.
The government has posted warnings against activity outside in the hot weather. Bangkok Post reports that 34 people have died of heat stroke in less than two months. Of course the key to avoiding dehydration/heat exhaustion is to drink plenty of water.

Noktapoot (Centropus sinensis)

When we give water to our small trees, birds and lizards come eagerly for a share. Tiny bees gather around a saucer of water to convoy the precious liquid back to their nest. 
When my friend the Coucal on the right approached me expectantly one morning, I thought she was hoping for tasty kitchen scraps as usual. She went instead to perch on the edge of a tub which had held water previously. I got the message and put out a clay dish filled with clean water. She immediately went to it and drank repeatedly.

Image NASA/CNN

The drought extends through the tropical regions of Asia and to Ethiopia and Brazil as well. India and Cambodia have been particularly hard-hit.

In our area where surface reservoirs have gone dry, and villages are unable to supply piped water to the houses, the government has had many wells drilled down into subsurface aquifers. 

We often pass this line of wells along the road where people can fill tanks for free. These are tanker trucks in the picture but people also come with pickups and farm tractors pulling wagons to fill big plastic tanks and haul the water home with them.

The monsoon will come. We are told that the rains will be slightly more than average this year so hopefully this period of drought is now coming to an end. Although the time of water scarcity has been hard, it has been a valuable learning experience. When something as precious as water becomes scarce, we begin to see how highly we must respect and treasure it and how wrong it is to waste and abuse it.

Pure cold water at the headwaters of the Fraser River in Canada.

The Drought Continues

The photo above was taken October 20, 2013, when our newly dug small pond was full of water after the ample rains of that year.
We stocked the small pond with Tilapia and colorful Carp, hoping they would grow and that a healthy pond ecology would develop. Our much larger pond had about three meters of water in the deepest part back then, with a capacity to take two or even three meters more.

Unfortunately a period of drought came along and by April of the next year, the water in the smaller pond was nearly gone. Our fish were definitely in distress. We decided to move them to our large pond where at that time, there was still plenty of water.
Our friend Na Sit came to help us net the little fellows and I lugged bucket loads of them to their new home.
We had already stocked the large pond with a kind of catfish which our sister-in-law had provided.
None of the newly-introduced fish died so we felt happy that all the fish could adapt to living together. By the way, Na sit is not wearing boots in the picture. That's grey mud from the pond bottom.

An earlier post about the drought can be found here.

As the drought continued though, the water level in the main pond became lower and lower until it was reduced to a green soup, knee-deep or less.

Ael's dad, Poa Dao decided to get his friend Poa Tan to help him catch all the fish and transport them to a small holding pond which he had made at his house. We were all surprised at how many fish remained in what was left of the water and at how big they were.

Dad was also surprised and delighted to find a good-sized Asian snakehead fish, pla chon, Channa striata. We didn't intentionally introduce this predator among the grazers in our pond but perhaps eggs were clinging to water weed that we had thrown in from time to time. It's a good illustration of how resilient and persistent the innumerable forms of life can be in their struggle to survive and to reproduce.

We had been assuming that our catfish were "pla sawai" which is a common kind of shark catfish but when we caught them we found them to be "pla buk", giant Mekong catfish; Pangasianodon gigas. These fish can grow very big; up to 3 meters in length and 200 kilograms in weight; the world's largest freshwater fish.
This species is listed as critically endangered, its range in the Mekong basin severely reduced. The Thai government, however, has been breeding them and making them available to people who want to preserve and propagate this valuable species.

We grilled one of the catfish and found it delicious, smooth textured and mild with very rich fat under the skin. Dad made tom yam pla with it, stewed with a mildly spicy broth which, for me, was truly world class!

While this period of prolonged drought has not been in accordance with our plans and wishes, it has been an excellent occasion for learning.


We need to improve our understanding of pond ecology so that our ponds will be able to support aquatic life indefinitely. I feel pleasantly surprised about the pond being able to support growth and even fatness in so many fish while I thought it was ecologically underdeveloped.
We have already put snails and razor clams into the pond ecosystem and we hope eventually to have a thriving population of shrimp there as well. It all depends on the rains!

Diagram from FAO:

The Forest Garden

The statement at the left, headed "About Us" begins by saying "We are amateur forest gardeners...". "Amateur"(from Latin: amator, lover) means that we do this because we love doing it; we are not in any way professionals and this is not a commercial enterprise! But what is "forest gardening"?

I was happy to find an interesting and well-written article on forest gardening in Wikipedia. Here is a lengthy quote which explains what it is all about far better than I can:

"Forest gardening is a low-maintenance sustainable plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans. Making use of companion planting, these can be intermixed to grow in a succession of layers, to build a woodland habitat.

Forest gardening is a prehistoric method of securing food in tropical areas. In the 1980s, Robert Hart coined the term "forest gardening" after adapting the principles and applying them to temperate climates.

gathering passionfruit

Forest gardens are probably the world's oldest form of land use and most resilient agroecosystem. They originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions. In the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually superior foreign species were selected and incorporated into the gardens."  

This is what we are working toward here on our land. We hope to develop a way of life with the emphasis on ecosystem restoration rather than on extractive exploitation, on self-sustenance rather than on commerce, on health and happiness rather than on wealth and social status. While we don't rigidly adhere to any particular model we have taken advice and inspiration from several teachers and organizations. Here are just a few:

One well known and popular system of forest gardening is called Permaculture. I find it heavy with complex terminology and design theory but I think it definitely offers a sound approach to living in harmony with the natural world for those who appreciate that sort of style.

In Thailand, the traditional mixed home garden with fruit trees, coconut palms, trees with edible leaves, etc. along with rice paddies, ponds with fish and ducks... in short; comprehensive agriculture, is still common in the countryside. The transition to modern commercial monoculture, however, is rapidly gaining dominance. A recently organized and articulated system called Wanakaset advocates a return to self-sufficient resilience.

Masanobu Fukuoka

Masanobu Fukuoka was a Japanese agricultural guru who taught natural "do nothing" farming practices.

“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution

Fukuoka Sensei proposed a way of life and a way of farming in which the healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit could take place in one integrated process. 


Farming is a way of life, an expression of our relationship with the living world and a means of producing what we need to live well.  Clearly, the way we sustain our lives directly shapes our qualities as human beings.  Both the activities we engage in to produce the goods we desire, and the quality of the products that we, in turn, consume, influence our physical, mental and spiritual vitality. If methods of production are harmful, and the things  produced are unhealthy to consume, such a way of life is destructive and should be abandoned. 

Ernst Gotsch

Just a few days ago I came across a video about the work of this energetic and dedicated researcher. His name is Ernst Gotsch and he has been farming and developing methods of rehabilitation of damaged land all his life. He has found improvements in micro-climate, and return of springwater resulting from forest restoration. Soil improvement with much greater productivity is the primary success achieved with his methods.

We like to be optimistic in thinking that perhaps there is a growing awareness, growing knowledge and motivation among alert people so that more and more of us will start working to reverse the damage humanity has done to the earth over the last few centuries. If it is not to be, that's alright too. We feel privileged to have the freedom and energy that allows us to engage wholeheartedly in such a fascinating and satisfying experiment.

Below, you can see a schematic diagram of our land. We don't yet have a raised water tank or solar panels (or ducks) but everything else is in place at least to some extent.

The proportion of "forest" will be much higher than is represented here. Click to enlarge.

Takien Tong

The historic photo above records two Thai royal barges, large dugout canoes meant to transport the king,royal family and officials on the Chaophraya river. Some sources tell us that these boats are carved from teak while others say the preferred wood is "Takien Tong". One book talks about Takien Tong being a kind of teak, but it isn't.

         

I'm going with Takien on this. It's a Dipterocarp species: Hopea odorata. Teak is completely different: Tectona grandis.

I first heard about Takien Tong when we were having our house built. While we had specified real teak for our windows and door frames, our general contractor reneged on this agreement and then absconded with more of our money than he deserved.

Our builder, however, stuck with us and, with him, we visited a window and door shop in the city .

When it became clear that real teak wood was prohibitively expensive, we settled on another tropical hardwood; Takien Tong.

When the windows arrived, I was pleased with the workmanship and impressed with the extreme weight and density of the wood. I was a little worried about the greenish color, though, but that was soon resolved as it changed to a nice brown during construction.

Here, on the left, is a young Takien tree planted near our pump-house.
Hopea odorata is native to Thailand although it probably prefers the places with more natural moisture than we have.

While we can't possibly live to see our little trees like this one grow to their immense maturity such as those that were used for the Thai Royal Barges, we can take whole-hearted satisfaction in giving them a loving start.

In Thai tradition, trees are believed to have spirit and the spirit that inhabits the Hopea is called Nang Ta Khian. Her permission should be respectfully sought before any Takien tree is cut down, otherwise misfortune may follow.

We don't feel we should worry at all about Nang Ta Khian's displeasure because, rather than destroying her trees, we are planting and nurturing them.

Hopea odorata wood is very hard, heavy, strong and very durable. It is resistant to termites and other wood-eating organisms. The grain is close and even.

Takien wood is difficult to saw but finishes well. Planing is fairly easy and the surface produced is smooth. Nailing properties are rated very poor. It is chiefly used for boat-building, dug-out canoes and for construction purposes, where durability and strength are of primary importance.

Traditionally, it is also used for carts, presses, flooring, roofing, piles, fence-posts, ploughs, furniture, etc.

Thailand's laws about cutting trees for timber are quite strict an fairly well-enforced, I think. As I understand it, trees planted for commercial purposes must be registered so they may be legally harvested and sold at a later date. We are purposely leaving our trees unregistered, hoping to block future commercial harvesting of these valuable trees when we are long gone.

Beyond any doubt, in the grand scheme of things, the value of a standing, living tree vastly surpasses the paltry commercial value of the cut timber or the finished products made from it, be they ever so useful or decorative.













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Tolstoy, Reciprocal Ethics

Sharing Equally the Toil and Its Rewards

Painting by Ilya Repin  "Ploughman" Tolstoy working in the fields

Early in the first part of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy's great novel, "Anna Karenina", we see Konstantin Levin (the character I most identified with) paying a visit to his old boyhood friend Oblonsky at the government office where Oblonsky holds an official position.

Levin is physically well-built, strong and tall, but he feels awkward, inarticulate and out of place in the sophisticated ministerial environment into which he has ventured.
Oblonsky introduces him to his colleagues who are present. Quote:
"Levin was silent, looking at the unfamiliar faces of Oblonsky's two colleagues and especially at the hands of the elegant Grinevich who had very long, white fingers with very long, yellowish nails curving up at the points and large glittering sleeve-links. These hands apparently absorbed all Levin's attention, depriving him of freedom of thought."

These hands with their "long, yellowish nails" and Levin's reaction to them, set the tone for one of the major themes in Tolstoy's novel. The hands that belong to an official of the ruling class are pampered hands which have never known strenuous toil.

Levin, like Count Leo Tolstoy himself, was born into an aristocratic Russian family and has inherited an estate with numerous serfs. His advantages afford him the opportunity to live an idle and dissipated life among the wealthy and titled people of Petersburg and Moscow. He probably could become a government official, another Grinevich, if he so wishes. He feels, however, a strong aversion to such privilege, finding deeper satisfaction in managing his estate. He is drawn to the countryside, to the land, to the peasants who support society with their work.

Young Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy spent his early years bouncing around from university to his estate, to society and into the army without much clear purpose or direction. He drifted into the dissolute life of a carouser and a wastrel but increasingly, he found a personal anchor in writing. Associating with the literati of Russia and Europe gratified his vanity but he began to see something false and hollow in the intellectual vocation.
Much later in his life he looked back  with some shame and a great deal of regret on the wayward folly of his behavior as a young man. He described this earlier period with the following harsh words:

"I put men to death in war, I fought duels to slay others. I lost at cards, wasted the substance wrung from the sweat of peasants, punished the latter cruelly, rioted with loose women, and deceived men. Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, and murder, all were committed by me, not one crime omitted, and yet I was not the less considered by my equals to be a comparatively moral man. Such was my life for ten years."    
                       Leo Tolstoy  "My Confession" 1880

As realization gradually dawned in Tolstoy's mind that the social structure within which his own life was so amply supported was based on grievous injustice and violence, he determined not only to reform his own life and the socio-economic conditions on his estate, but to work out ways that society at large might best be reformed.

We can find in the novel, reflections of the author's growing social awareness:
Nicholas Levin to his brother Konstantine:
"... our society has so shaped itself that the more the people work the richer the merchants and landowners will become, while the people will remain beasts of burden for ever. And this system must be changed."
Later, Konstantine's thoughts about his brother's ideas:
"...he had always felt the injustice of his own superfluities compared with the peasant's poverty, and now decided, in order to feel quite justified, that though he had always worked hard and lived simply, he would in future work still more and allow himself still less luxury. And it all seemed to him so easy to carry out..."

Neither the real Tolstoy nor the fictional Levin found that reforms were "easy to carry out". After so many centuries of serfdom, the farm workers didn't understand much about independence and felt little trust for the landlord and his newfangled ideas.

       *          *         *          *          *

Tolstoy the great writer was, above all, a dedicated thinker. Throughout his years he grappled mightily with the important questions of his own time and perhaps of all time. Brought to depression and suicidal despair by the relentless exercise of reason, he turned to the church for relief through faith. He soon rejected the absurdities of institutional religion, hammering out his own idiosyncratic version of Christianity emphasizing the core teachings of Jesus as expressed in the sermon on the mount.

From: "Reciprocity, Or the Golden Rule,  Tolstoy

Tolstoy pondered the "Golden Rule" as taught by Jesus: Matthew 7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”  and he took it very seriously indeed.

Unlike K"ung Tzu who meant to re-establish and solidify the traditional hierarchical structure of his society, Tolstoy, so many centuries later, wished to use reciprocal ethics to break down hierarchies of power, privilege and wealth and to bring about egalitarian reform.

His belief that uncompromising adherence to this principle of reciprocal ethics was "the answer" subsequently brought Tolstoy to unpopular and dangerous positions. He became an outspoken advocate of non-violence, a pacifist opposed to patriotism and state warfare, capital punishment, and violent revolution. He became an anarchist opposed to government and to taxation.  He spoke forcefully against institutional religion and was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church. He even became a vegetarian.

Late in his life Tolstoy took on the role of demagogue, attempting, in his didactic writing, to persuade wealthy and idle people to share their property with working people, give up luxury and learn to work for their own sustenance. The extremism of his ideas and his moralizing tone limited his effectiveness, I think. He convinced a few, influenced many but tended to offend and alienate most, including his wife and family members.

       *          *         *          *          *

But the equal sharing of toil and its rewards isn't only an issue of social/economic justice. By the sweat of the worker's brow, rewards that go far beyond mere bread and other material goods may be realized. Spending time in purposeful exertion out in the fresh air and sunlight, in contact with the natural world, bestows good health, substantial pleasure and deep satisfaction.  I have found through personal experience that these rewards of toil are very real and very valuable.

In the wonderful section of Anna Karenina in which Levin decides to join his peasants in their day's work mowing a large hay-meadow Tolstoy reveals this other aspect; the exhilarating joy  of physical work.

"Haymaking"  Yuri Kuznetsov

At first the peasants are uneasy about having their "Master" working alongside them and Levin finds that the work of swinging the long scythe is hard for him. Persevering, he slips into a rhythm and a state of self-forgetfulness as the day progresses. He gets to know the simple and good-hearted peasants and they, in turn, accept him into their company with helpful and generous good humor.
In the heat of the day, Levin experiences the blissful enjoyment of an ordinary drink of water:
"And truly Levin had never tasted any drink so good as this warm water with bits of grass floating in it and a rusty flavor from the tin dipper."

There is indeed a truly Epicurean pleasure in simple food when hungry and fatigued, in setting down the heavy pack after hiking 10 miles over hill and dale and just lying down on the bare ground, rest is blissful. Similarly, simple friendship with companions who have shared the effort toward a common goal is pleasure surpassing any concert or sumptuous entertainment.

"If the life of a man is filled with toil, and if he knows the
delights of rest, he requires no chambers, furniture, and rich and varied clothing; he requires less costly food; he needs no means of locomotion, or of diversion. But the principal thing is, that the man who regards labor as the business and the joy of his life will not seek that relief from his labor which the labors of others might afford him."
                  Leo Tolstoy: "On Labor and Luxury" 

"The possibility Of living On the land, of gaining one's sustenance from it by means of one's own labor, has always been and always will be one of the chief conditions of a happy and independent human life."
                 Leo Tolstoy; "To The Working People"

Russian Peasants by Anne Bobroff-Hajal