Wow, the pitiful summer just flew by
without much bravado around here. Working the off farm job kept me
pretty well in catch up mode the whole time. The unusually wet
spring ruined the garden with weeds that grew faster than I could
control them. The farm spent most of the summer looking like gypsies
lived here with the waist high grass and critters tethered out all
over the place. August and September were a whirlwind here with me
falling into a 20 year old, 3 cylinder gas john deere rider mower,
getting the square baler timed ( thanks Gene!) and getting all the
hay baled. Without Justins Grandpa Gene, I would have never figured
out what the last owner had jacked up on that baler. It's always the
simple stuff that gets overlooked and I just never knew that piece
was there. Old farmers are always worth their weight in gold. Would
have been a waste selling the cows to get tractor tires if I couldn't
get the baler going to make winter hay.
So, the 3 billys born this spring got
sold, $2 a lb, not bad. Kept the orphan billy to breed with since
he's from new bloodlines. If he wouldn't have come here, I would
have had to buy one so I'm good with it. He's got a good
personality, easy going and is turning out nice and beefy. Should
make nice babies. Now I will at least have the winter feed bill
covered and a good billy to make new babies for spring kdding. Throw
in the hay bales and I'm sitting pretty good coming into the winter.
Now all I need to do is come up with a small cushion in case disaster
hits like last winter.
I'm still a bit in withdrawal not
having a milk cow around here. Had a scare with the old horse, she
seemed to just walk into a fit of colic. It was a bit tense here for
2 days while she worked it out with the help of 2 bottles of karo
syrup. I figure it was weather related since here diet has not
changed. She's also over age 20, officially old for a horse. She's
still looking good and can still buck when she wants. She'll be
around for a few more years. I don't mind, she earned her stay here.
Got a wild thing picking the chickens
off every few days. I've gone from 35 laying hens down to 10. I
have 19 chicks in the grow tank waiting for me to finish a coop to
put them into. I have 36 eggs in the incubator but they're due
tomorrow and I haven't heard any peeps from in there. I think the
temperature wasn't good for this batch. The weather change and I
found a cat sleeping on it the other day. Eh, I really didn't need
any more right now anyway. Hate it that they're all dead in there
tho. Seems like such a waste.
One of the team at work has a
puss-ass immune system and brought a nasty bug to work for us all.
Hacking and coughing, spitting in every trash can and yup, we all got
it. I, of course, went on the old timey health ranger offensive and
all I ended up with is a mild case of the sniffles out of it. The
rest of the crew ignored my suggestions and they're all smacked with
it hard. It still amazes me that people can be so narrow minded and
hard headed. Where do they think modern medicine came from? Eh,
it's like hitting my thumb with a hammer trying to teach people
anything. They're sick, I'm not. I'm good with that, LOL
Oh, so, back in July, the company
that has been picking up my trash for the last 6 years just quit
picking it up. I thought the first week that maybe I missed trash
day but the next week went by and the trash was still there. Then,
another week went by and the trash was starting to stink a bit. Yep,
they aren't picking it up. So, I commenced to drag it over to the
burn pile and get rid of it. Then, 2nd week of August, I
get bill in the mail for August pick up. I ignore it since they
hadn't finished out the month of July which was already paid for.
Then, 2nd week of September, I get another bill! This one
is for August and September pickup! Oh no, this ain't gonna fly. Me
being me, I wrote a somewhat nasty note on the bill and sent it back
to them. Simple and to the point, if you stopped picking my trash up
in mid July, I can not pay for August and September services I did
not receive so stop sending me trash pickup bills, LOL Reminds me
of the John Deere dealer sending me a repair bill stamped past due
for work they did on the mower they took as a trade in 3 months
prior. Sometimes I wonder about people. How they can be so stupid
and or why they think everyone else is so stupid.
As for me, I'm just plodding along,
day to day, going with the flow of whatever happens. It's really all
I can manage to do. Make plans, watch them work or fall apart,
adapt, overcome, move on to the next plan. Samey same and more of
it, LOL.
Oh, I did manage to make 2 small
upgrades toward the cottage kitchen being approved as a full on
commercial kitchen. I had 2 specialty jobs this summer that paid for
the supplies. A couple more things and I'll be good. Now all I need
to do is find the time to work it up to a viable business. Hard to
cut back hours from the job that pays the bills to build up something
that isn't making enough at this time to cover much of anything. I
most certainly haven't given up and the market is out there, just
taking longer than I planned for it to pay me like I want it to.
Hard to dedicate the time needed when I have nothing to fall back on.
The not sleeping for 2 or 3 days at a time to get those specialty
jobs done is one thing, doing it all the time or once or twice a week
just won't cut it. I'm way too old for that!
Well, I grabbed the camera for some
fall farm pictures and what do ya know, the battery icon comes on
instantly. Wow, guess it's been a while since I picked the camera
up. I flip it over and pull the batteries out. Yep, the camera has
been a victim of my son helping himself again. In place of the
lithium batteries I always put in her, there's 4 cheapie standard
ever-readys. Guess my son needed AAs and thought he could just get
them from me. He does that quite frequently. Very annoying. At
least this time, he actually put something in their place. Normally
he just takes what he wants from me and leaves me nothing in return.
Most of the time, it's food. Every now and then he sticks me for the
lawn mower gas, take dish soap from me and fill the bottle with water
to cover it up, help himself to the toilet paper, usually my last 2
rolls. He learned this crap from the ex. He better hope and pray I
never get ahead enough to burn this crap trailer down and build
something he can't break into so easily. Wish the dang dogs would
bite him.
Eh, it's life and now it's time to
feed and go to work........
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