Jumped Up Into Fall And Surprise....

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, 2^nd 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, 2^nd 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........