Daily life
So, it occurs to me that my lifestyle is nonstandard enough that I should probably blog more of it. The hard part is that explaining the premises is... more complicated than one might expect. Blogging it feels... Well, a little like "http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=635193". However, it seems worth a try, if for no other reason than to provide those I piss off with the means of understanding what place it is that I am coming from.
So here goes.
It's springtime here in upstate NY. It's finally possible to get back to the back field with equipment, *and* see the ground at the same time. In another few days, the grass will grow, and the ability to see the ground will cease being true.
This is important, because last autumn, we cleaned out the barn, and spread some of the sheep manure on the back field. Included in that manure were some rocks. Rocks which, if left on the field, will do extremely expensive damage to the equipment of the local farmer that bales the hay from the aforementioned fields.
You see how convoluted this gets before I even get started describing my day? It's only going to get worse.
Okay, the rocks need to be picked. Kind of now. Dad is out of town doing real estate business, so it falls to me, mom, and Ellen, one of our renters that is lacking enough in funds to be willing to do farmwork under the table. It's a thing in rural NY.
Which means that my morning was spent getting the 2 of them set up to pick rock. Simple enough, right? HAHAHA! Okay, first, does the lawnmower run? Well, maybe, try it, it fails to start due to inadequate battery. Hook up the battery charger, drain the gas, and refill it with new fuel. Try it again. Hooray, it starts! Now where the hell did anyone put the trailers? This turns out to be a WAY harder question than you'd expect, and, what with one thing and another, half an hour passes, and off they go.
Meanwhile, there are several dump truck loads of manure that we hauled out to that field for later spreading. It would be good to get those spread at this point. So, I go try to start the tractor (it's been sitting in a field since autumn, what with one thing and another, something no one is very happy about, but, since no one took the effort to prevent, no one can snark much about). It starts, and drives up to the mechanic shop, but then... kinda quits. it's running, but at best on 2 cylinders (out of 3 for the record).
Except now mom and ellen are clearly stuck on the way out to the back field. Take Cait's car mudding to get out there (4wd is still important for that), and do what's necessary to get that onto terra firma, and head back to the tractor.
Pull and clean the plugs, replace a plug wire, and it runs alright now.
Believe it or not, this really is the short version I am skipping a lot.
Okay, so, the tractor (with the attendant manure spreader) is now running. the next hurdle is getting the truckloads of manure into the manure spreader. This involves the skid steer. however, I am lacking an operator.
Caitlin is around, and has some minimal experience running the skid steer. That's the best bet. She's willing.
So, tractor and skid steer go out to the back field, and the politician impression begins!
Things go oddly smoothly for quite a while, Cait really gets the hang of moving shit around! Until the second to the last spreader load, at which point, the wild gesticulations of the elder generation indicate that we have overloaded the spreader and broken the chain... Well, that's enough for today, bring the machines back to the yard (getting the skid steer stuck twice, and the lawn tractor stuck once.
Tomorrow starts with having trey (The fiance of Cait's sister, another upstater low enough on funds to be looking for farm work... I did mention it was a thing?) manually shovel the manure out of the spreader so that the chain can be fixed. I am sure he'll love it.
I am debating about whether or not to discuss (to the tune of frozen's "do you want to build a snowman") "Do you want to build a small deck", or "How I spent my evening"... But I think that's another story.
So here goes.
It's springtime here in upstate NY. It's finally possible to get back to the back field with equipment, *and* see the ground at the same time. In another few days, the grass will grow, and the ability to see the ground will cease being true.
This is important, because last autumn, we cleaned out the barn, and spread some of the sheep manure on the back field. Included in that manure were some rocks. Rocks which, if left on the field, will do extremely expensive damage to the equipment of the local farmer that bales the hay from the aforementioned fields.
You see how convoluted this gets before I even get started describing my day? It's only going to get worse.
Okay, the rocks need to be picked. Kind of now. Dad is out of town doing real estate business, so it falls to me, mom, and Ellen, one of our renters that is lacking enough in funds to be willing to do farmwork under the table. It's a thing in rural NY.
Which means that my morning was spent getting the 2 of them set up to pick rock. Simple enough, right? HAHAHA! Okay, first, does the lawnmower run? Well, maybe, try it, it fails to start due to inadequate battery. Hook up the battery charger, drain the gas, and refill it with new fuel. Try it again. Hooray, it starts! Now where the hell did anyone put the trailers? This turns out to be a WAY harder question than you'd expect, and, what with one thing and another, half an hour passes, and off they go.
Meanwhile, there are several dump truck loads of manure that we hauled out to that field for later spreading. It would be good to get those spread at this point. So, I go try to start the tractor (it's been sitting in a field since autumn, what with one thing and another, something no one is very happy about, but, since no one took the effort to prevent, no one can snark much about). It starts, and drives up to the mechanic shop, but then... kinda quits. it's running, but at best on 2 cylinders (out of 3 for the record).
Except now mom and ellen are clearly stuck on the way out to the back field. Take Cait's car mudding to get out there (4wd is still important for that), and do what's necessary to get that onto terra firma, and head back to the tractor.
Pull and clean the plugs, replace a plug wire, and it runs alright now.
Believe it or not, this really is the short version I am skipping a lot.
Okay, so, the tractor (with the attendant manure spreader) is now running. the next hurdle is getting the truckloads of manure into the manure spreader. This involves the skid steer. however, I am lacking an operator.
Caitlin is around, and has some minimal experience running the skid steer. That's the best bet. She's willing.
So, tractor and skid steer go out to the back field, and the politician impression begins!
Things go oddly smoothly for quite a while, Cait really gets the hang of moving shit around! Until the second to the last spreader load, at which point, the wild gesticulations of the elder generation indicate that we have overloaded the spreader and broken the chain... Well, that's enough for today, bring the machines back to the yard (getting the skid steer stuck twice, and the lawn tractor stuck once.
Tomorrow starts with having trey (The fiance of Cait's sister, another upstater low enough on funds to be looking for farm work... I did mention it was a thing?) manually shovel the manure out of the spreader so that the chain can be fixed. I am sure he'll love it.
I am debating about whether or not to discuss (to the tune of frozen's "do you want to build a snowman") "Do you want to build a small deck", or "How I spent my evening"... But I think that's another story.