Gone With the Wind

This weekend I took the oppurtunity to watch the great classic movie version of gone with the wind. I wasn't terribly interested in vieiwing the movie, if there is something you haven't taken the time to see by the time you are 28, then it doesn't interest you all that much. At any rate I sat down and watched the movie with the vet assisant this weekend and enjoyed it. I did have a bit of curiousity about the movie/book. It would have been hard to get through life ignoring all the great works of literature. I did enjoy the movie and didn't really think it was all that long in duration. The Scarlett character was interesting and good. I can't quite figure out how she got herself so stuck on that Ashley fellow, even after she was married to Rhett. I think I would have stayed around at the end though if I was Rhett. After waiting that long for her to come around and become his wife, he just decides to leave after she has revelation. Some guy he turned out to be, thinking he could leave to London to make Scarlett jealous, and then having a nervous breakdown after the death of the daughter. I do however now have a better idea of the context of the not giving a damn quote. I had always knew it was from the gone with the wind series, but now know how it was better used.

I also finished my tobacco late saturday evening. We started cutting on tuesday, finished cutting on friday, and had it all hung by saturday. I wasn't really wanting to play around and hired just about anyone who showed up. I am not entirely sure how much I spent in the process, but I don't see the point of paying a low amount towards labor and a high tax bill. I can take what I pay out in labor in taxes, but I am not entirely sure how that ratio is determined come tax time. I will be visiting my tax people in december to see what I can expect this coming fall. I am glad to have my tobacco done, I can't ever remember putting in more than five acres in two days. From the numbers I wrote down, I only spent about 200 hours putting in the crop, which came down to about 38 hours per acre. I am pretty satisfied with that. The other two crops we put in were closer to 50 hours per acre to put in. The best part is that I now have most of this week off to get some R&R since we are ahead of schedule.

I also finished my graduate program this last week. I had a phone interview with my advisor, and she didn't tell me that I failed. I can't decide if the work I did was a good enough quality, or if she passed me so I wouldn't hurt the schools graduation statistics. At any rate I passed and don't plan on doing any more acadmic work for a long time. I will be getting rid of most of my school items from my house after I get more confirmation. My office room should be plenty cleaner when that day comes. I have a fold out couch in there now that is likely on its way out soon also. I put a couch in there because my brother asked if he could stay at my place sometimes if he was home during the summer. If he starts up school without taking the time to hold up his end of the bargain, the couch is going somewhere else. I can't decide if I should try it out on craigslist or just set it in the yard with a free sign on it and wait for the couch to disappear. One one hand, I could get some cash out of it. On the other hand it would be gone quickly and without question.

times typed "oftern"-0

The Ad

Wednesday morning I placed an ad for tobacco help on a popular website for posting ads. I have recieved about a dozen calls from people looking for help. Most calls I received were of the variety for general labor. Being able to cut tobacco is a pretty specific skill that we have not been cultivating on our farm for the last dozen years. It is no surprise to me that there are very few decent tobacco cutters out there, we ran out that skill as an industry when we started looking away from home. In the morning will be the litmus test of my ad. Plenty of people called saying they could help hang and load, so I told them friday morning and where to be. Hopefully plenty of people show up and we can get done in a short amount of time. We are unable to start cutting dads patch for at least 10 days from now. If we finish in a shorter amount of time, that equates to more R&R for me.

Doing so kind of reminded me of last weeks sermon at church. Father Mike sermoned as to how God was generally testing us to see what kind of person we are. When the time for the afterlife comes, we are going to be evaluated on how we treated others. Hopefully I do enough good and treat people well enough from this posting and do the right thing for those who ask.

I am also doing one of the final tasks for my graduate program tomorrow. I have an oral defense of my capstone project. The interview is supposed to last a hour. I am graded on pass/fail conditions. I am not sure what is going to happen if I fail, and I am even more unsure of how much money I have to put into tuition if I don't pass and finish everything. I don't have a teaching job waiting on me, and the greenhouse and agriculture industry is right at my fingertips when I quit lazing around with my graduate work.

times typed "oftern"-0

farming time

Tobacco cutting seems to be more exhausting than I remember it being. I spent most of the day cutting and didn't even get 500 sticks. Last year we had an amigo that could cut 1200 sticks on an average day. The work is harder than I thought. We have found a new source of help around, one of my brothers friends from high school that has nearly caught up with me cutting speed wise. This is a good sign for me, I don't neccessarily need to be known as our fastest cutter. We finished our first field in what amounted to 4 days, but Dad is keeping a pacing that I don't quite understand. He likes to keep cutting toacco when I think we should be hanging. If I was in charge, we would completely finish one field before we moved on the the next. He is ready to go and start cutting my field tomorrow. I may not be the expert sage that my grandpa and dad are, but the more tobacco we have on the ground, the faster we have to work if a rain is in the forecast. I think we should take it easy and get everything off of the ground before we put more on the ground. Muddy tobacco doesn't sell at the market at the end of the year. I did make up a nifty book that should help me get an idea of how much work each acre of tobacco is. From the first field we finished, it seems we have about 1300 sticks per acre and have to pay about 50 hours of labor per acre to put the crop in the barn.

I also took the oppurtunity to watch food inc. this weekend. While this doesn't put farmers and agriculture in the best of light, I thought it was very good. Our farm doesn't do the extreme feeding practices that are seen in the field. Our farm has 30 cows that are currently pasture grazing on grass. We are feeding our calves a corn mix with supplements, but they also have hay given to them everyday. What really surprised me is the leadership roles in our government. Many of the rule writers so to speak seem to have come from industry. This is very suspicous at first glance, but the more I thought about it the better it seems. If someone who wasn't in our industry was given the job, farmers in general wouldn't be happy. We want and need someone in the know who knows our needs and wants. They may be putting money in thier accounts and getting paid off from their former employ, The seed industry run by monsanto thing is the most worrysome to me. Hopefully I can navigate our farm into practices I am more comfortable with. Being pursued by monsanto and running up legal fees would be no good for anyone.

times typed "oftern"-0

Newtown 5k & more

This past weekend I took the oppurtunity to run in the 28th running of the Newtown 5k race. I remember running in this race back when I was starting my senior year of high school, and ran about a 23 minute time. This year I ran about a 25 and walked a 5 getting my time up to around 30 minutes. This is almost embarassingly slow, but my workout is a bit lax nowadays. I think the actual running might be fine, but I need to be doing my situps and pushups. That should help me just as much as running. Besides, my goal is to be more healthy, not be able to run a set amount of time.

In other news, we started cutting tobacco yesterday. This is the first year since I was 16 that we haven't had any amigo help. We are going to get the first 3 acres in at a leislurely enough pace, and then move on to my 5.5 acres. My dad did  mention that we might try and get some amigos for my field, so hopefully that works out pretty soon. It would seem that I am the second fastest cutter out of all the help we recruited for now, right behind my 48 year old dad. This is not all that surprising when I take into account the overall experience each of us have cutting tobacco. We have three guys that have never cut any at all before, two with slightly more experience, and then my dad, my brother and me.

I also now have a back patio and some furniture. I am a bit surprised that I have as much debris falling down as there is on the new patio. It would seem I am going to have to exert some effort to keep it clean. I also installed a clothesline and turned on my AC the other day. I decided that since I am going to be running the dryer less, I can run my central air some now during the summer. The house didn't get as air conditioned as I thought it would, but it was under 80 so it was relatively cool for my house this time of year.

times typed "oftern"-0

28

I had my latest birthday yesterday, turning 28, and just now got to blogging. I haven't really wrapped my head around being this old. A decade ago I was getting ready to start my senior year of high school. The highlight of that time of my life was being 2nd on the cross country team at the league meet and also staying up to watch SNL, even when I knew it was a repeat. Not really has changed much since then. I run a bit slower and its harder to stay awake that late usually to watch TV. Five years ago I was starting what would become my last year of college life. I only had one quarter to actually finish up and graduate, but decided to hang around and get some more science classes on my resume. I also apparently wanted to gain nearly 50 pounds from drinking and eating like an idiot. Only two short years from now I will be an official three decades old.

In other news, I am pouring a concrete pad and will have a patio soon enough. My parents bought new patio furniture and are giving me the old stuff. All I have to do is repair a chair or two, and I'll have a shady place to lounge in the evenings. I may eventually need to get myself a plug and a light out that direction so I can listen to a radio and so forth out there, but having the concrete pad needs to be more official. I had the form ready for more than a week now, but Dad kept putting off helping me. He said last week that getting the concrete delivered and poured would be more than I want to pay. But after giving that ideal some thought, I put all the pros and cons together and decided that I was willing to pay what they wanted. Dad wants to spend all day mixing and moving things by hand, and I don't want to work that hard as hot as it is outside. I want to pour it all at once, and move my thoughts to finishing up my grad program. Dad accused me of being lazy, but I like to think I should be working smarter, not harder.

Speaking of which, I have turned in my final paper. I doubt the version I submitted will be quite right the first time. I have learned to use the system to my advantage and submit things, get feedback on what I need to do to pass, do those things, and then resubmit. All I have left to do now is  a short powerpoint and one other form. After that I have an hour long phone interview in defense of my work. I had held off renewing my license in the hopes that I can get everythign done and have a fresh license that has two certifications on it. I may have to go ahead and pay the fee to get the license renewed anyways, school is coming up and I am not sure if I can sub without a current license. Even though I primarily only work in two districts, I should get that done before september rolls around and I have consistent work.  

The tobacco season is looking to be a real bear also. We don't have any amigos as of this writing. The bosses seem to think that my brothers and me are going to be enough help. I suggested that I put an ad on craigslist looking for any help, but the bossman didn't like that idea. He thought I would spend to much time answering calls. I would much rather spend time ansewring calls than working my butt off to get the tobacco in. Especially when I can take labor wages off on my taxes. Why should I have to work twice as hard when I can hire someone to ease my burden? The bosses are crazy if they think I am going to not hire any help to put in my tobacco. We may be able to get away with that for grandpas three somethign acres, but that business is not happening for my six acres. I will work as much as I can or am able to, but harvesting tobacco is really a numbers game. The more help we can throw at it, the faster we can get done. We don't even need good qualified help. All you have to do is show up if you ask me, preferrably all week and on time.

times typed "oftern"-0

Dentist after 3 years.

This morning I finally took the time and got to the dentist for myself. I haven't been since 2007 when I ran out my insurance from being employed. I wasn't terribly worried, since I had a spotless record at the dentist. Even when the doctor first came in, he said he wasn't terribly worried about me. He mentioned that I am probably a once a year person at best, even though I hadn't been in nearly three years. Well those three years might have been a detriment, since I now have a cavity. All the way back on the left side of my mouth, I had a gum line cavity that was also covered by calculus. Once he got done scraping that away, he informed me of the bad news and I scheduled my next appointment sometime in september. So hopefully the trend continues, one cavity in nearly 28 years isn't all that bad.

In other news, I went to two reds games this weekend. They beat the braves 2/3 and had record attendence. It really is exciting to be following a team in the hunt for a division title and go to their games. Sometimes at the games, I do lose interest and nearly fall asleep. When I am at home I can go and do something else for a little while at least. At the games I am nearly restricted to my seat and have to entertain myself within the range of activity at the game.

I also really need to get to the optometrist soon also. My eyeglass aren't strong enough anymore, I can feel my eyes being strained at times. I only have one usable contact and my glasses barely sit on my ears. My current struggle is that the insurance I bought applied to my old dentist, but not the optometrist. I need to decide if I want to visit a new doctor or see try and visit my old guy anways.

Well thats it for now, I am going to go work on a patio area for my house. My parents bought some new patio furniture and I inherited the old table and chairs. So I need to take possesion of them before their mind changes.

times typed "oftern"-0