That is what struck me when I read a biography of Abigail Adams. The work never stopped, from planting to cooking to sewing.
One of the women talked about that too. How hard it was for a colonial wife back then and the non stop work. Bizarre. People today couldn't begin to work like these people, and NO INTERNET. I'd be dead.
The producer of the show made an interesting comment afterwards. She was talking about how we view life in the 1600s as being backwards, primitive, crude, etc.
She basically said "our ancestors weren't stupid, they had working systems for everything", basically you can't judge them by our standards today.
Besides the hard work, the other thing that struck me, was the reliance upon one another. Everybody had roles, and if everybody decided they wanted to do their own thing, the place would fall apart. Mrs. Vorhees had a fit when some of the women were complaining about their days off and the work. She was practically screaming "You signed up for this, you have certain responsibilies, you should get over it and deal with them". Some of them viewed this as an extended five month vacation I believe, and didn't want to cook, clean, mend clothes, etc.