Bad Idea

The heat wave is creeping over us. Hot and hazy, sun all day. Temperature hung in the lower 90s.

I left for work very early today-- wasn't gonna get stuck behind again. NYU and the foreman were down in the greenhouse watering-- but I hung around the store waiting for the boss to arrive. Wednesday is picking day. Our crew staggered in and then headed out to cut swiss chard, kale, zucchini, summer/kousa squash and pickling cucumbers-- I had different orders. Other strawberries bloom/fruit in one big push, but the day neutrals draw out their berry bearing over a month-- today was the first day-neutral harvest. The strawberries were left entirely to me. I packed up a bunch of quart containers and headed down to the lower fields. Picking strawberries is quick and easy work-- but given all the waiting and heavy weeding, many berries were molded/damaged needing to be pruned off. The 3 long rows took a few hours and yielded only 10+ quarts. I brought the berries to the farm store and caught up with the boys as they finished cutting the cucumbers in the forest fields.

The string beans have exploded out and desperately needed to be picked-- which happens to be Bah and Old Rudolpho crew's specialty. But first the taylor raspberries needed to be picked-- so our crew marched up the hilltop to give them a hand. We picked straight through until lunch. Before leaving to eat, Newport thought he'd prank the foreman and secretly hung his car keys from a nail at the top of the farm store.


When I got back from lunch I found the foreman preparing to kill Jockey--  assuming he took the car keys. I set the foreman straight and he stomped out for a late lunch. Newport felt pretty bad, but we rounded up the boys and got back to work-- up to finish off the berries. Chatted with NYU as we picked along and over some long hours managed to pick 5 trays worth.

Just before lunch, Newport and I had left the crew-- running off to the lower fields to connect up the corn irrigation line and plug the string bean line, so Bah and Old Rudolpho could stay dry while picking. By the time we returned from the raspberries, the irrigation had been running for a few hours. Next job: The foreman sent us to clean up Big Boy's shoddy weeding job from yesterday in the cantaloupes and squash. The boys got to work while I double checked all the tomato/cantaloupe fields' drip line.

At some point I noticed there was something really wrong with the water gun's jets-- then the water stopped flowing entirely. The foreman and I ran over to the horse pond and saw that the tractor's PTO shaft had stopped turning. We tried shifting its control levers, but no response. The boss and Newport came over and we took the entire dashboard apart. The foreman was miserable, I don't know what else had happened-- but he kept repeating 'today is hell.' Looking around the tractor I noticed a big pool of oil collecting underneath a gearbox-- seems the entire hydraulic system was shot.

Newport and the foreman brought around the new tractor, while me and the boss crept the old tractor out of the way (we couldn't lift the front loader, because of the hydraulic problems, so the forklift attachment was driven straight into the hillside). I took NYU and Stretch out into the tomato field and we moved the water gun line a good 30ft up the field. I hustled back to the horse pond and helped the boss start up the water pump while the foreman and Newport ran out to adjust the corn line.
Success, the water was finally flowing again.

Closing time was slipping up on us, so I watered down the boss's brother's pumpkin and rose garden to keep busy. At the day's end the boss was ecstatic-- the day had gone so well. We were ahead of the picking schedule and the water was running. The foreman looked like a wreck-- said he needed to mainline a couple beers in order to wash off the day. I helped the poor guy check over a few more drip lines, then called it a day.


I am exhausted-- almost fell asleep at the computer.
And tomorrow is the hot day.

Here we go!