Hesiod was a simple shepherd of Boetia in 700 BC Greece until, as he himself describes, he became beloved of the Muses who bestowed upon him a laurel staff and with it the gift of Poetry: "they breathed into me wondrous voice, so that I should celebrate things of the future and things that were aforetime." Hesiod's earliest poem, the famous Works and Days, shines a light on the daily tasks, timings, and strategies needed to farm...