Lollygaggers

Ok.

This is going to be a rambling man post so ... buckle up.

First. My foot is mostly healed up, I've been working on getting full range of motion in my toes and after "much" dancing at the wedding I feared that all attempts at personal rehab were for naught. Turns out, I'm a sucker for inflicting pain on myself. Not in a sick way though. More of a, no pain no gain kind of way. The foot is no longer pretty pretty colors which gives me so much happiness I can barely contain myself.

Second. The wedding went well. At least it did according to people that heard me play. Personally I was a little disappointed as to how the performance panned out, but what do I know? I'm not a critic, I'm a performer.

Third. As of yesterday morning I was down 20 pounds from graduation. Turns out that beer will add pounds that you didn't even know you had.

Fourth. The farms. Oh Lord, the farms.

There is a lot of back and forth between my roommate Jessie, (manager of the drug store, law office, doctor's office, and the bank) and our current CEO who shall from hence forth be called CEO. See, a few months back one of our board members and influential donor passed away. While this is sad some of the higher-ups feel that it is mandatory that he be memorialized. Turns out he was a lawyer in Des Moines for all his career. CEO wants to rename a historic building which has the name of one of the partners attached to it right now, "Taylor Law Office" to the "Fairbanks Law Office". Jessie has put in hours of research into finding out who this Taylor was, where the building came from, and generally proving the point that the Law Office should retain its name. CEO wants to get in good with the board and the community by renaming a building. Jessie has just filled out an application for other employment.

Interns. While I'm glad that we now have interns to help us out with school groups, chores, work, and talking to visitors. But...being put back into a quasi management position has brought out traits in me that I had forgotten I had. Apparently I can be very demanding, curt, but at the same time instructive. Steve on the other hand is instructive, laid back, and friendly. All in all we make a good team as we round each other out. However, there is a draw back as he and I do not work the same schedules and therefore the one male intern we have is split with me for half a day, and Steve for a full day. We have three female interns on the 1850 site, one has a sharp sense of humor that I really enjoy, one reminds me of my sister to the tee, and the other is from Tennessee. That's all I can say about her because I don't work with her. The girls are getting along great on the farm, but then again Katie, the domestic supervisor has been out of town this past week. Joe, - the boy intern who's nickname is...Boy. What can I say, we're inventive. - is very eager to please. He is also very dumb, but a quick learner. He's at the blacksmith shop two days, at 1850 two days, and at 1700 one day. Much like my schedule. Sam the blacksmith has taken a liking to him and I must say that he strikes me as a smart kid who has never had to work a day in his life. But I've only worked with him one day. The reason I say that he is very dumb is because he doesn't know how to work. I don't understand that. Sure, I goofed off when I was younger and "working", but once I secured my first real job I didn't goof off. I learned that you might be assigned to do jobs that you hate, or you might not be very good at them, or they were boring, or tiring. But you still did them. You always did them. I guess I just have to learn how to think like a kid (he just turned 19), who doesn't know how to work. It will take some time.

The farm itself. We've had a couple of wet days so far, and from what the weatherman says we'll have a few more the next couple of days. To me, that's fine. The farm looks great. Our corn is already mid-shin high and has been cultivated twice by horse. Our potatoes look amazing with hardly a single weed among them. The wheat is knee high and growing strong. The flax is just behind the wheat and the barley is keeping up with the flax. The garden looks amazing, six rows of peas, nine bean plants, six lettuce plants, four pepper plants, nine purple cauliflower plants, a whole bed of onions, two rows of radishes, a row of turnips, two beds of tomatoes...not bad for only being planted two weeks ago.

Claire-bell our milk cow is due to calf in...3-4 weeks judging by how tight her bag is but who knows? T-bone, is being a teenager. He has finally learned that I am not a matador. It took a week or two of working with him but a nice solid whack to his nose with a steel toe made him realize that I'm not somebody that he can boss around, rather the opposite. Steve told me that if I can train him I can keep him. This is not something that I desire, but at least Steve holds T-bone in as small regard as I do. Beau and Luke are still testing me out, trying to get away with things that Steve won't let them get away with when I'm with them. They are very stubborn, but apparently they don't know about Hackelberg blood.

Sheep and lambs are all fine. One lamb twisted his front right leg and is limping but other than that no bad news to report. The lamb that we had to help nurse has been weened and is on a steady diet of grass and he fights for his share of corn among the older sheep. We're happy about this.

Poultry. The little chicks have figured out that they can fly which does not make me happy as it means that I have to chase them down when they get out of the hutch that we keep them in. The Dominique's are laying consistently, but we have only been able to find 3-4 eggs a day. Since there are five of them, this is cause for concern. Where do the eggs go? The drake is doing well as far as we can tell. The ducklings have gotten huge. The little space that we have for them is not nearly big enough which is more cause for concern, but I'll let Steve handle it.

Hogs. We will have hogs by the end of next week! Beyond that, nothing new to report. Unless CEO decides that hogs are a bad thing for an Iowa farm to have, we will have our hogs. Corry, my counterpart at 1900 and I figured that we could get hogs on our farms even without approval from the higher-ups since they never come out to the farm sites anyway.

Other than all of that, everything is quiet out here. I've settled on the project that will keep me sane while staying out here. I'm working on completing the project in compensation for rent. But I haven't sold Nancy the HR lady on that plan yet. I'll keep fighting.

Hope to hear from ya.

Buck