The Useful Duck!

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Sunday, July 8, 2018

Summer, my daughter goes into the big wide world, I feel old

I have been remiss in my blogging.
I was warned about getting a real job.
It is difficult to go from being one's own boss to working for someone else. It is difficult to go from being task oriented to being procedure oriented.
Or rather,
I propose a question...
Do you know the difference between a brown nose and shit head?
The brown nose knows when to stop...
Learning to do my new job was a lot of fun. Fairly stressful, but still interesting. Every new experience is interesting.
I have run into a wall.
When you are farming, you may be broke, but you continually think how to better yourself. I have started a planting business, non GMO feed business, custom hay stacking, bought a baler for feed store straw, and built my own GPS guidance system.
As a groundskeeper my goal is to mow straighter lines...
I am learning about plants and trying to remember their names. I need to learn about turf irrigation. I need to improve my spraying and fertilizer timing.


But... I will NEVER make more money, be able to built the tool I need for grooming the baseball warning track, build a better sprayer, or get a group of alumni together to actually fix the soccer practice field.
Nope, the next five years will be driving around in my little golf cart trying to do the best job I can and still appease the utterly irrelevant and random request of my supervisor.
And trying to stay awake after working a second job, whether it be farming or something else.

It is summer.
I think it is the latest we have made hay since the horrible year in the previous century when I cut like 200 acres and we baled it with two Freeman 200 balers and no one bought it.
I should be finished Tuesday. Then I have to get it hauled and stored. The fellow who was going to buy it lost his sale and so there will be 250 ton of slightly over ripe hay to sell. Highly digestibility, and low feed value. Perfect horse hay. I sure wish I would have offered $1,000 less for the rent...
I have left no bales or tractors in MuddyValley's field to disturb the Elk. This is an achievement for me.

My daughter is in Virginia. She is taking part in the Young Writers Workshop which is put on by the University of Virginia.
It is being held at Sweet Briar College near Lynchburg. She could attend Sweet Briar and get free tuition. It is part of the small college exchange program with the college I work at. She would have to pay for her own horse though.
She says everyone thinks Portland is like the show, "Portlandia," which it is.
I miss her.
It has only been a day.

4 comments:

  1. I've been assuming that you're still among the living. Glad to hear from you. And yes, working for "the man" does sort of take the meaning out of life. Hang in there and maybe you can regain any lost sanity after you retire.

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  2. riding the mower is a good time to think.
    david wrote the psalms while sitting around staring at sheep. although under better conditions for meditation than you have, but still...
    glad to see you back.
    keep thinking and planning, maybe concoct a short story or two while buzzing around the field?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Likewise remiss in blogging a PT job is to blame. They want me FT which is a compliment but I've been looking at the shot clock bolted on the sign of average life expectency and looking at the mess I don't want to leave but as most times looking at the things I'd really like to do. It's a dilema. Straight lines for one organization is totally wrong for the next. This comment is of no help. OK. Sure you miss your daughter. When my two kids left never to return it was like throwing away everthing I'd focused on for 20 years. It was a big happy swimming hole that now had become silt filled. Help her make the best decision for her. One of mine lives nearby but is busy and the other lives in London, which is a long drive. Perhaps your supervisor will die or quit or get run over by a golf cart...prepare for management!!

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  4. Actually, the elk could care less. The helper's tractor out there all year kinda bothered me though.

    ReplyDelete

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