Mondays and my lack of farm management skills part five

I woke up this morning and it was still dark. This was not because it was early in the morning but rather because it is late in the year. It is raining and the sky is a dull gray. It is supposed to shower all week.
My daughter had not accomplished her 90 minutes of reading for the weekend. Instead she opted to watch stupid movies. She started out watching an incredibly stupid cartoon on OPB but she was complaining about not getting her reading done so it was shut off. Soon she was busy reading a Cowboy Sam book to make up her minutes. Cowboy Sam is not 5th grade literature but the pictures are awesome. I think Jack Merryweather is much underrated illustrator.
We were supposed to take pumpkins to school for the kids to decorate. Of course you can't use knives in a modern school. Somehow I was supposed to get her to school early as she had forgotten to do a math problem. I didn't get her to school that early but I got the pumpkins.
On the way out I noticed that the employee had arrived. He left early Saturday when we were trying to get a field worked before the rain. I suppose coming in early on Monday and drinking coffee for an hour while I take my daughter to school and get my stuff together makes up for the days he left early or came to work late when we could actually farm.
On the way we discussed her reading. She got angry and frustrated at me. I told her crying was not going to get her reading done and instead of watching stupid movies all weekend she needed to do her reading. Putting it off till the last minute was not a good idea. I did not add commentary as to why I know that is a bad idea.
Once at school we saw the law of unintended consequences at work. The ladies have been complaining about people parking in the firelanes. There is a new Principle who takes her job very seriously. There are changes, a new sheriff in town. Now the kind of out of the way parking lot I use is for staff parking and the close parking is for the annoying young ladies to park to drop off their kids. I do what ever I can to avoid those ladies because they are always late and have poor judgment. (see a previous post on that subject)
There are new security measures in place at school These probably do nothing but they are annoying which is the only language young mothers understand.
The latest child disappearance was most likely planned by a family member and while it took advantage of a lack of security at the school, more security would not have prevented his disappearance, it would have just happened in a different manner.
Just the same, all of us adults are now potential abductors and should all be suspicious of each other. I just wander where I want and act apologetic and admit to being confused. This works very well as the school is run by middle aged women who find that polite and confused act very endearing.
Once back at the farm I found a list of people who want me to do things. I've not been answering my phone which really annoys people. In fact I just turned the durn thing off and put it on the charger in my pickup.
I had just settled down to sit a spell and take advantage of the wireless internet when my brother came looking for me. A nice elderly lady was at the shop and quite upset because I hadn't returned her phone calls. I started to explain that I also hadn't listened to her messages but then I realized I'd have to explain the reason, which was I just didn't want to be bothered. It was really nothing personal, I just didn't feel like talking on the phone.
She wanted a bill for her hay and to answer the question as to if I was going to do hay at Gopher Valley next year. She doesn't know what she will do if I don't do her hay.
What I needed to say was that I would do her hay if she paid me more, as in just giving me $55 a ton instead of doing it on halves. But, then again I am really tired of going up there and having everyone complain about how late I am and then dealing with storage and hauling and rough fields and impossible barns to stack in and just doing hay in general.
I told her I wasn't able to do her hay in a timely manner and was tired of everyone being mad at me for not getting it done. I said she needed to find someone who would get it done on time. She pointed out that there was no one but me to do it. I wanted to suggest that in that case folks should just get off my case and say thank you and bring me cold drinks and be happy in the summer instead of bringing me down with their negativity.
I working on her bill right now.
I suppose I should go down my list of phone messages and call people back. I think there is about 20 of them.

Tuesday morning update: Monday afternoon I took off to get 1/3 of a pig as we are out of protein at our house. When I came back my helper was gone. The silage chopper header was turned over and the shields were off so I assume he was working on it.
This morning I got a text that he is having back spasms and may not be in to work today. Now here is the deal... My brother is taking my father to the Dr. today. I made an appointment to deliver barley seed this afternoon. Half our corn is ready to chop for silage. I need to work 50 acres to plant annual ryegrass. I just got a 175 acre planting job, plus a 17 and a 7 on the wrong side of McMinnville (which I should have turned down), I told my daughter I would take her to the Zoo Friday, my brother drives truck Thusday-Friday, the silage hauling truck is not ready, the drill is half full of annual ryegrass, the silage chopper needs to be put back together, the oil needs to be changed in the 2-135 and the 2-155, and of course.... My helper is not here today...
Perhaps it will rain all day anyway...
Whatever...

Tuesday Noon update: My neighbor needs me to help him with sweet corn. It is too wet to run trucks in the field to pick so he picks into a large box which then is dumped into a truck. The box holds 5-7 tons and takes a 4wd tractor to pull in the mud. I don't think I have ever been involved with picking sweet corn in daylight hours for some reason so it looks like a night job. This is good as I will be able to work on the corn chopper during the day and run the dump box at night.
I hit my hand with a really large hammer. No visible damage other than a loss of my Christian Sanctification and a possible hole in the ozone layer due to offensive language-actually I didn't say anything out loud. It was an internal commentary!
Plus the silage chopper header needs to be rebuilt. There are bearings that seem to be loose and a broken grease line. How can something so simple be such a pain in the butt to work on? Why are New Holland Parts so #$%^&* expensive?
I could use that 1.2 million dollars right now.
I think I'll go fishing...