little overdue

Well it has been a while since I got to sit down and blog. Up until today, things have been busy and I haven't been able to sit down and blog around like I have in the past. Three weeks ago, I subbed every day of the week and came home and did some farming. Two weeks ago I ran a tractor and a disk every day of the week until dark. Last week we were rushing around getting the corn out, and finished on thursday. On friday we started our opening weekend in our greenhouse and that kept me busy all through the weekend. I had to wonder how I had time all last fall to keep up the post a day pace I was posting.

With the rain, we have finally been able to slow down some and catch our breath on all the activities of agricultural pursuits. Hopefully all the rain doesn't soften up all that corn we put out and kill all the seeds. Replanting will be a bear, especially if we have to go in a muddy field. It would be real nice if the weather was going to be sunny and dry things out, but that doesn't seem to be the case for the week according to apuzzo over on 9.2.

We also have caught up to where we thought we would be last year at this time. The people that bought the paylake at the auction last year decided that they were willing to sell us the properties. I don't think we are going to try and run a paylake. The lake was run poorly last year, and not many customers will be back soon. I have heard people say that many of the fish died over the winter because the oxygen machine wasn't running because the electric was shut off. I have heard that people were stealing fish all summer and however else long also. One of the people who used to help run it thought we might have to re-invest 10 grand just in fish to get people back and fishing. I hope we don't do this, I'm really for the idea of using the lake as irrigation and growing some niche crop during the summer. If I am going to make a living and be a respectable non-bum of a person, I would like to invest in a niche market. The tobacco market is moving away in three years and after that we will need a way to replace the income we garnered for being cancer merchants.

In other news, I was finally able to do something cool for the farm. I used the software dad been buying for the past six or seven years to make a map of all our fields. With the binders I put together, we can take field notes in all the important equipment and have a better managed farm. Hopefully this translates into spending less money on the farm and making better decisions.

Dad did mention to me that he would like to clear out a part of the woods we bought with the lake. The woods is right behind my  house, and would translate to plenty of firewood if I wanted it. This means I will very likely push ahead with the outdoor furnace I want to install to heat my house with. Most of the money for the furnace will have to come from my saving account, but as long as I leave enough in the account to make a years worth of mortgage payments, I do feel comfortable about taking money out. I turned off my furnace about a month ago, and that dropped my electric bill by about 90 dollars for the month. I have paid for that though, the house is just about as cold as it is outside. That's fine though, I do have plenty of warm clothes to wear. I think I will have to spend some money installing some heating ducts to the upstairs. Right now, there is no heat upstairs, so I might as well spend some money if I am going to be pumping heat in my house as soon as the fifties hit next fall. This may cut back on the renovation I wanted to do on the other room I have upstairs. I would like to put the room in drywall and get rid of the wood paneling, but time will tell how much I have to spend and invest in my estate as I see fit.

I also found out one of my cousins is losing his teaching job near here. His family thinks they were lied to about the whole deal, but the more I look at it, the less appealing being a teacher is. All I ever read is how schools don't have money and have to cut things they saw fit to have before. What incentive do I have to invest in a career as an educator if I can't make a living doing so? My skill set isn't limited to that area, so I am lucky in the sense I don't depend on that area for an income. Some people such as my cousin have invested that much of their schooling and education to being a teacher. He has to scramble around for a job to provide for his wife and daughter. On top of that, he mentioned to me when we worked construction together that he wanted to coach and that was one of the reasons he wanted to get into teaching. Hopefully things can work out and DDJ and others I know job searching can be gainfully employed sooner than later.

times typed "oftern"-0

SMV

Today I had to do one of my least favorite things to do as a farmer. I had to drive a huge of machinery across a highway and down two miles of another popular stretch of road. This sucks big time as the driver of the machinery. Todays bigger machinery can easily take up a whole two lane highway, meaning that if I meet any traffic, I have to get over and preserve any good name the farming community has. Most cars see a tractor on the road and panic, getting over as soon as they can. I can't take the risk of driving by a car that is stopped and doing any body damage or personal damage. If I see a car heading my direction, I get over as soon as I can and let them decide when they can go around. Then after everyone has gone by, I look behind and then let the cars stuck behind me around. Today a 10 minute car drive took me an hour in an articulated 4 wheel drive tractor with a 12 foot wide disk with the wings folded up. By the time I got where I was going, I think something had burnt up on the clutch and may find out tomorrow when I get back in the daylight and have dad give the thing a look over.

The tractor I just mentioned is also not doing me much good. Its an older tractor that has a cab, but the air conditioning doesn't work at all. This means I have to drive all day long with both doors open. This does let some fresh air in the cab, but it also lets all the dust and noise in from outside. I have to cover my "fancy" phone so it doesn't have a layer of dust on it. I can't hear it when it rings anyways with that much noise around. Texting or navigating is no easy matter either.

Speaking of which, my brother may be an asshat. I'm not sure what exactly my dad asked him to do, but I was not impressed with the results. I imagined that he asked him to escort me and the tractor to the field I was going to by driving my pickup truck slightly ahead of me with the blinkers on. Instead he went out of sight as soon as I crossed 32, I seen him next when he was heading the other direction and then he just went down the road and then he showed up again behind me. I would like to ruin some favor he might ask me for in the future, but I like to think of myself as a good person and will just be a do as asked.

times typed "oftern"-0

Two direction time of year.

Well Dad and Grandpa have hit their stride and we are in a busy season of farming now. Dad decided that if I am going to be among the percentage of the greenhouse profits, I should be there by 8 am everyday. This is fine with me, as the only real reason I usually have to leave greenhouse activities is for church on saturdays. Going on saturdays this time of year lets me get in and watch over sunday mornings so that grandma and grandpa can go to their church activities. The only other issue is that dad also has to pull me his direction to help with farming details. He might decide that he wants a pop in the middle of the day, or that I need to go work somewhere else while I should be at the greenhouse. I should be doing those things anyways, but it would be nice if he was able to plan ahead enough so that I could plan some.

I am trying to fit the greenhouse details on the farm works software and am not sure how it is going to work. I need to put all of our flowers in as supplies, but I can't distinguish all the groupings like I want to. It looks like I am going to have to keep an inventory and put in sales and expenses that way. It would be nice if I could describe our benches as fields, but I don't think it will work out that way. We don't "harvest" from the greenhouse like we might an actual field, so listing everything as a supply might be the way to go.

It was about this time of year a year ago that I started my sobriety also. I realized that I had or was going to buy a house and that I could save money by not drinking. After the auction I bought a 12 pack, and once it was gone, I didn't have more than one beer on any occasion until the fourth of july. I also had recently read around the same time that a man who doesn't drink, doesn't party and has faith would be very desirable or was being sought out. It turns out more was implied than what I could do, but reading that was a good kick start nonetheless.

I think I will be starting another such sobriety streak here soon, but I have a couple of beers left in refrigerator to get through first. No reason to throw them out or let them go bad, I just know what drinking does to my body and want to knock it off again.

I also watched the movie "Fireproof" tonight. I very much enjoyed it and will be looking for it on the store shelves in the future. The movie had plenty of good messages, but I can see why it didn't have commercial success like other blockbusters might. I remember hearing Kirk Cameron on some news program and thinking it might be okay, but am glad that I watched it now. I hope and pray that if I ever get married, I can do the right things for God and my wife to deserve the benefits of a good or blessed marriage. I did watch "drag me to hell" last week also, but it was a bit goofy or over the top for me. I did like the overall story, but it wasn't my favorite horror or scary movie flick.

times typed "oftern"-0

a year and two days ago.

I wanted to do this post yesterday but my stomach was bothering me after eating 3/4 of a large pizza hut pizza and then running on the treadmill for 35 minutes. So I went to bed instead.

A year and two days ago, the auction happened that defines where I am today. My landlords family had the estate sale and we got enough of what we really wanted to get. All the farmland around near to us, and the house I had been renting. The whole family was really nervous about what could happen at this auction. We didn't know who was going to show up and decide they wanted to own a paylake. We had some interested parties come by and scope out the place in the time leading up to the auction. We got to hear about the auction style and how it might be disadvantageous to us. Luckily all turned out well. We were bidding on everything nearby here until the landlords one daughter and her family, the p-uuhs, as I will refer to them, got our total bid up to over 300 grand. We had already offered them that before they decided on an estate auction, so we weren't interested in going above that. They ended up paying about 150 grand for the lake and woods nearby, and spent last summer being pay lake folk.

Yesterday my mom told me that the p-uuhs called us and told us that they are interested in selling. They didn't mention a price, only saying that we know what they have put into it. I think we are going to buy it, but not at the price they bought it for. We have talked about using the lake as a irrigation source if we decide to grow a niche crop as an alternative to tobacco and gaining more acres to grow soybeans. Dad doesn't believe we are going to make it as a farm with the current amount of acres we grow and try to make profit on.

I was really relieved that we got the house and I wasn't going to be moving back in with my parents. I had been half joking about getting evicted to just about whoever would listen. If we hadn't got the house, I would have likely given up on farming and moved to wherever I could find a job as an ag teacher and then work until I was able to work as a science teacher and make my living as a teacher. I think I would enjoy teaching if I had to rely on it as a career, but that is not a necessity as of now. As of now, I might even give up subbing after this school year and be more of a farmer career wise. That means getting involved in the greenhouse more and fine tuning the farm works program to see where we can afford to spend less money. It will also mean deciding what we are going to grow as a niche crop and getting that established and finding buyers and creating a market for the area.

times typed "oftern"-0

up to date

Well it has been a while since I put the last blog post out. Not much has happened since last thursday. I mowed my yard for the first time, sent Walter to the vet to get neutered, and cleaned up the floors in my house some more, the bean market is down and we are getting ready to work the fields.

I did knowingly skip church on easter sunday. I don't usually like competing with large crowds and the C&E crowd was going to be in full effect on easter sunday. I will double up on my donation next time I go to church. I need to try and go to the saturday service this week also. My AZP group is having their initiaion banquet this weekend and I think I will go up on saturday to drink and socialize some. I have gotten back to drinking more than usual lately. I haven't been downing 12+ beers like I would do in the good ole days, but do need to cut back here again soon. After this weekend I will finish all the beer I have in the house and cut back again. Really as long as I get on the treadmill at least every other day, I'm not worried about how much I drink. When I was drinking heavily, I rarely excercised and put on 50 pounds the year I was 23. Now that I burn up some calories and drink sparingly, I doubt I put on any weight and ballon up.

It also looks like I will be heading into greenhouse management soon. If I don't get a teaching job, I will committ to our greenhouse business at 25% this year and increasing more year by year. I really don't mind this but the idea of managing a business scares me a bit. I think we bring in about 30 grand a year from the greenhouse and that isn't bad for the time we put into it really. We start getting supplies in at the end of february, have our opening day the third weekend in april and close shop by the first part of june. I don't know how much work grandma does in terms of ordering supplies, but that is going to be the diffucult part for me. Luckily for me she keeps very good and detailed records that should be easy to decipher.

I also have some terrible thoughst about a recent news event. I don't really feel sorry for a young man who needs to go to spring break, drinks themselves dumb and then has an accident and dies. When I was 17, I didn't need to do those things to feel good. I spent time with my family worked because that is what we did. What kind of adults were that 17 year old listening to that going on a made up holiday and drinking in excess is the example to follow? The only good thing is that this situation can be an example for other young kids who think they need to do similar things. Maybe I am in the minority here, but I don't want any kids I have influence over thinking those are cool things to do.

times typed "oftern"-0

Manzannas

Today we planted about 20 fruit trees on my dads place. Him and his cousin decided they were going to have more trees to buy cider with, so they bought a bunch of apple trees. He did buy one pear tree for some reason, I guess he thought he would just see how it turned out. I do like my apples though, so I didn't mind helping out to plant the trees. I would have to say my favorite type of apple prep is baked apples. Warm sugary apples are hard to beat, and they can be cooked in the microwave relatively easy.

I also have to recant a little bit. I was at the CTC again today, and the teacher left me a well prepared plan for a substitute. She typed out a page of what she needed each class to do, had a roster, extra copies if I needed to make some extras and extra extra work if the class got out of hand. If all the teachers put that much effort into being out, I would have much more work to do. I do have to wonder if she is going to be satisfied with what the kids got done though. I hear way to  many kids plan on just saying they don't understand it so the regular teacher goes over it when they get back. I know that I can't force them to do the work, all I can really do is present the material to them. If I ever get a full time job, I think I would be really tough on the work kids done when a sub was in for me. I would want them to have a bit of fear about doing what the sub gives them.

I also got to open the windows in my house today and let some fresh air in. Hopefully I will get to keep the air circulating until late fall. Tomorrow I am going to shut off the gas to my wall heater and just tough out any more cold weather I have. Its good to have the warm weather back.

times typed "oftern"-0