Sometimes I love my job, sometimes I hate my job.
I'm not going to talk about why I sometimes hate my job.
I'm just going to focus on the simple pleasures. The color of the leaves that never stop falling. The fact that it is not cold and raining.
And, that Monday I found two quarters and a blunt in the stands.
I was going to give the blunt to the Workstudy student but thought better of it.
I could have smoked it but since I'm not a smoker it would have brought me little pleasure.
To be truthful I did not examine the so-called "blunt" that closely. Perhaps it was just an unfiltered Lucky. The story is better if it were enhanced with a little "Chronic."
Still, I could have and that brought me happiness.
The fifty cents was nice to find. Can't buy coffee with fifty cents anymore but if I'd find another two dollars to go with it I could get a cup of medium roast, no room for cream, medium sized, from the Starbucks on campus. Hey, life is about opportunities, right?
Last Friday was the final soccer game of the season. In an uncharactoristic burst of "foresight" the soccer coaches looked at the weather forecast and saw rain was predicted.
They looked three weeks ago. The weather has been pretty spotty. Mostly light showers although we did get a couple days of heavy rain.
One of the coaches did groundskeeping as his Workstudy job in college. At his old job they used to tarp the field in case of rain. Last year we overwatered and then it rained three inches so the field was a little damp. This year has been very dry and the field is not we. But they have been tarping the field off and on the for the past three weeks.
Interestingly enough, the tarp acts sort of like a greenhouse. They bought those huge blue plastic tarps like you can get at Harbor Freight. Under the tarp the ground is wetter than outside the tarp. The grass is growing faster under the plastic but also turning yellow. I thought it would just die.
I planted the field a week before they put the tarp on. I think the tarp helped sprout the grass. It is kind of hard to tell. The soccer scoring area is covered and the middle of the field is not.
But when I was planting I realized I didn't have quite enough seed to cover the field so I put the seed on the bare spots in the goal areas and let it run out in the middle of the field. It was less trouble to just pretend to plant than it would have been to explain my miscalculation. Plus, half the time the new seeding doesn't actually work anyway and the field was scheduled to be aerated and sanded in three weeks anyway. Not sure what the rush to plant the field was exactly but I have given up trying to figure things like that out and I just agree with what I'm told to do.
But I digress.
After the tarping the irrigation manager wasn't told by the Supervisor to turn off the water.
When it was 85 degrees and had not rained in three months I suggested they water the field twice a day to keep the new seed damp on the baseball field. This was considered a genius plan and so it was also done on the soccer field.
It was not a bad plan but as the nights got shorter and the dew got heavier and rain was forecast, there was a little room for modifying the aforementioned scheme.
I'm not so good at giving suggestions. I'm not the irrigation manager and my pay reflects that. If it is not a huge deal I tend to just shut up. I have hobbies at home. This attitude was mentioned in a performance review, I said I would try to do better...
I had noted in the morning meeting that the water was still on.
Still, no one turned it off. Sometimes I'm supposed to show initiative and sometimes when I show initiative I'm accused of not properly communicating and so I tend to do what ever brings me the most entertainment. I thought about just leaving it on and seeing what would happen under the plastic but thought that would make more work for myself in the end so I shut it off.
The day after the tarp was on the field the irrigation manager panicked. He forgot to turn the water off. I didn't say that I turned if off. In fact I may have encouraged his worries a bit. I was so entertained by his consternation that I kind of forgot to admit to turning the water off.
He got so worked up he even confessed in the morning meeting. I said nothing. Sometimes that is best.
Last weekend I stopped by my old house. It has been trashed by tweekers. I know a person should feel compassion for the "outcasts" of society but... I think you should be able to take all the drugs you want and to ruin your life in whatever way you see fit but I don't get the wanton destruction of the house you are squatting in. Why would you break the windows and pile filth around. Why not take your garbage across the road or put it where it won't draw attention to your little secret drug hideout. You can be homeless and not be a slob. You can be down on your luck and still take out the trash. Why soil the nest?
My supervisor found a new supplier for seed and chemicals. This is the last bag of Triumph turf grass. I think someone at the old company liked Triumph cars or motorbikes.
I have been instructed to do lots of replanting. I've already done the Softball, Baseball, and Soccer fields but I needed to do the practice field and the supervisor wanted me to redo the soccer field.
The school is going to turn the soccer field to fake grass. I think this is offensive and wrong-as a groundskeeper.
Actually, it is probably a bad idea just from a money making perspective. The existing soccer field has some problems. It is on really wet ground but it does have a lot of sand on it and when we don't over water it then you can play pretty late in the year.
However, the ten acre practice field is rough, poorly drained, and is either mud or hard as a rock. But the practice field could bring in summer camps which bring in money and possible recruits. I would put my money on leveling the practice field and getting it booked through the summer.
Rather than plastic grass that costs a fortune to put in and looks like crap after three years.
But, no one asked me.
I think I planted my last field of the season today. The weather has been dry and sunny. I no-tilled wheat into corn ground. I was helping a neighbor who has done several favors for me and it was also a trade for getting wheat straw. It was the best kind of job.
The farmer left me a truck with 4,000lbs of wheat and said there was around 30 acres in the field and told me to make it come out so there was no seed left. I ran the GPS on the field and found the actual size to be 29 acres. I figured 32 acres with headlands and set the drill for 120lbs. I was not accurate enough on my turns in the dark last night and so I had to make two extra passes on the headlands. I was really worried I was going to run out of seed. Especially since I was too lazy to do a measured distance and weigh the seed to find my exact rate. I keep records of everything I plant so I figured I was pretty close on my setting.
I came up with 33.3 acres and the low seed alarm went off on row 12 and 24 right as I finished. I evened out the seed in the box, turned off the acre counter, and had enough to fix a couple skips and then I just ran out the drill on a couple hard spots that didn't cover good.
The ground was so mellow I had to set the drill really shallow to avoid burying the seed. I was amazed. I am also amazed at how little daylight there is.
We stayed for the potluck at Church and so I didn't get going right away. When I finished at 4 p.m. it really didn't look like I had enough daylight to get home. Plus, I had planed on either going for a motorcycle ride or playing monopoly with my daughter.
Instead I loaded hay. I was going to tell the guy to sod off as it is Sunday but he was a nice fellow and I really didn't have the heart. My nephew helped or rather I helped my nephew who didn't look like he wanted to load hay either.
UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that the cigarette in the photo may not actually contain Chronic. I should also note that it is not actually a "blunt" rather it is a "spliff."
I forgot that a cigarette which has had some tobacco removed and a little "Mary Jane" ( as the Longhairs supposedly called it-back in the day...) is called a spliff and if you do the same with a cigar it is called a blunt. Swisher Sweets seem to be the cigar of choice at my institution of higher learning. I used to find them in one certain parking lot all the time. They were usually not smoked much past the herbal remedy insertion point so they were easy to spot.
Disclaimer, this is really not the place to find a definitive commentary on youth culture or proper terms for describing the consumption of cannabis. I am a total dork and I'm old. Any information found on this site should be taken for entertainment purposes only. Any slang terms you pick up by reading this blog will cause folk to wonder what in the Sam Hill you been smoking. So if your are here for real information I suggest you hang it to Houston and hammer down out of this site cause the longer you stay the higher the chances you will end up nuttier than a pet raccoon.
Posts
