Slow Down Willy Boy

Lousy weather today, worse promised for tomorrow. Spotty rain and mist this morning gave way to cold dry clouds in the afternoon. The highest temperature today was 45F.


Late start this morning-- had to go to my doctor appointment. And so far so good-- now I know what I don't have: it's probably not a tetanus infection or the flu. To be safe he gave me the flu shot and a tetanus/whooping cough vaccine-- he also took some big blood samples to run by the lab. Unfortunately I'm a high risk case for Lyme disease-- so crossed fingers waiting on those test results.
After the appointment I pulled on my boots and got to work.


Clean up day. Pulled in and gave Newport a hand cleaning up the produce wagons/yard. All the remaining tomatoes have been piled into the store displays-- so we joined the foreman in clearing/cleaning out the entire workshop/storage area of the barn. Spotless. We wheeled down all the produce wagons, extra tables and market tents. Everything needed to be organized-- shipping supplies all in one place, tools in another, extra cardboard elsewhere, etc, etc. Newport and I climbed up through the barn and cleaned up the general supply 'area'-- then we dragged up all the salvageable pick crates and bushel boxes/baskets. The greenhouse was next-- all the steel/iron cultivator drags and odd pipe pieces needed to be stacked inside and organized. The boss brought down 20 some bushel boxes-- we sifted through the remaining winter squash and made two piles. One: perfect-ish squash we might be able to sell (got 1 box of butternut, 3 buttercup), Two: less that perfect squash to donate to the local food bank (10 boxes of butternut, 6 boxes of buttercup). The remaining squash were junk and headed to the compost. The foreman and I got busy making tractor trips back and forth, loading all the tractor's attachments into the barn (the water pump, seeder, fertilizer spreader, spray tanks all had to be inside). Lunch time.


Had a 15 minute lunch and then watched the store for the boss.


Back to work. Newport and I took down the back awning and folded it up-- took it and all the other loose tarps into the barn. We swept up the back area, put away all the dollies and stuffed back the trash cans. The foreman came back from lunch and we started the heavy work. The three of us stomped through the tomato fields and dragged out all the irrigation piping-- the 4in arteries and 2in water gun lines were stacked up along the side of the store. Newport and I wrestled out the big acre-sized gun-- hefting it up alongside the pipe pile. The foreman brought round the tractor and wagon-- time to pull the tomato trellises. We headed down to the bottom of the tomato field and began the painstaking process of separating, untangling and coiling up all the lengths of wire. After kicking out the stakes, the dog work began. The foreman inched along the tractor while Newport/I kicked each trellis post loose, ripped it from the ground and tossed them into the front loader. It took 5 full bucket loads of posts to clear the field-- hard, but quick work.

Newport and I stomped up to the forest field to deal with the forgotten 2nd round cherry tomatoes. Newport was bitter-- he and the foreman had planted the tomatoes and sunk in the posts, except things got busy. We never got around to wiring up the plants or even picking them-- the cherries just grew wild and rotted. It was a shame. We staggered down the line and kicked out a front loader's worth of posts and tossed on the unused coils of wire. And that was it.


Newport was inches away from a panic attack all day as bill collectors phoned him up one after another reminding him of missed payments. After one call too many he threw down a few coils of wire and just started yelling, then he said-- I just don't know what the hell they expect, it's the middle of a recession and I know what I don't have, but this is too much. I fed Newport cigarettes as he sulked about trying to avoid the foreman-- they were at each others throats about something. Pulling out the posts evened things out a bit-- everyone was fine by the time we all sat around the store chatting with the boss about tomorrow. Weatherman is calling for heavy rains tonight through tomorrow, then afternoon snow flurries. All the inside work is completely finished, so we're all waiting on the phone call tomorrow-- waiting to see if we get to work/get paid. Lots of field clean up remains, but this is it-- the final stretch.

Might not work through the end of next week. Gizzie could be let go even sooner. This season flipped off like a light switch-- it's all ending much too fast. Can hardly make sense of it and wrap my head around what comes next.


Take it easy.