Tied to the Field

Sun all day through, temperature was somewhere in the upper 70Fs and lower 80Fs.

It was a long day in the day neutral strawberries.
I watered over the greenhouse this morning then got my orders from the boss. Went over the trimmer, fueled up and then walked down to the lower fields. Weeds have invaded the late summer strawberries-- weeds in the aisle, weeds along the plastic edges and weeds up against the plants. Usually Bah is the only one trusted with the delicate trimmer weeding, so this was a proving job for me. Had to be real careful: can't hit the plastic wrap, the strawberries or the plant itself. Trimmed non-stop (except to refuel) through till lunch.


After lunch it was back with the trimmer. I'd finished the main aisles in the morning, so it was time to clear the edges. When replacing the plastic string the whole front end fell to pieces-- cleaned everything over and slowly managed to reassemble the front mechanisms. Back to stringing. Newport came over and started the fine hand weeding immediately around the strawberry plants. Finally finished with the trimmer.

While dumping the 'string-machine' back at the greenhouse I bumped into the boss. Gave him a hand repairing one of the hood sprayers. They allow for precision herbicide applications (spraying the aisle weeds without getting any poison contacting the crops). The plastic hood was shattered at its top connection-- we built a steel plate, bashed the plastic back into place with an iron pipe and bolted everything together. The boss and I hung the hoods from the old tractor's forklift attachment, then it was back to the strawberries.

Joined up with Newport and we weeded the long slow way down the row. We saw the rest of the boys running around picking and transplanting. I was a bit jealous, wishing they'd come and lend a hand-- Newport didn't care what they did. We inched along and finished just after closing.


Got the paycheck and happy to be home. Darlin is coming in tonight and I am long due for some sitting down.
Take it easy.