on and on

[unicornduke]

I still feel like I'm settling in, or I'm in a weird limbo of life. Like I'm waiting for reality to come get me, I'm having a really nice time working on the farm. It's deeply weird. Not helped by my messed up sleep schedule, staying up late reading and not getting up as early as I mean to but lots of long hours and hard work. And the world is out there on fire.

I got my new drivers license tuesday, getting a bunch of farm work done including catching up with some things that have been typically neglected. As I'm spending more time here, I'm more and more baffled on how the farm is still running with how much time my dad spends on his computer work. How did he do it? 

Today was weeding and spreading woodchips with the mill creek mulcher, a delightful machine that spreads mulch in a 18 inch wide swath on a 400ft row of blueberries in about five minutes with more time spent loading the dang thing and driving to the rows than actual spreading. Then I spent a lot of time on the bobcat skidsteer moving woodchips from one place to another. First was consolidating the pile currently being dropped off. Dad has a local tree guy empty his trailer in two or three different places and it's hard to get good piles with dump trailers, so the chips end up in piles of around 5 feet high across a 100 ft by 50 ft area. So I spent two hours or so taking those piles, creating a ramp up and making a 40x40ft pile that is 12 or 15 feet high. Good fun. Then I took the bobcat and loaded our dump trailer with the aged chips from the other pile and brought two loads down to the blueberries to be spread tomorrow.

One deeply weird thing I'm encountering is that I'm now much stronger than my dad. He's always been incredibly strong but between getting older and his back issues, he no longer can carry the stuff he used to, or muscle the equipment in the same way. And I'm back on the farm full time, so getting stronk as fuck plus the testosterone is making things go faster, plus I think the hormonal birth control I was on before was causing issues. We carried trash out of the church basement late last night and I took two bags up that he couldn't lift and one of them wasn't all that heavy in my opinion. But maybe I've changed too.

I'm doing a hybrid garden, growing some things I want in with the PYO farm stuff, like paste tomatoes and jalapenos and some stuff will be in a separate garden for just me, like the 7.5 lbs potato seed that shipped today. I'm hoping to have the garden field rototilled by the end of the weekend so I can seed peas and some other spring things. We have been having weather whiplash with some days barely reaching 40F with some strong winds and saturday is supposed to be 70F. The peppers finally germinated, the little jerks, and I seeded tomatoes today. Farm raspberries are coming next week, strawberries the week after.

Monday I made so much mac and cheese that it required two cassarole dishes (my nice 9x13 glass baking dishes are in storage. somewhere) and I should have enough to last me through sunday night even when eating some of it for lunches. Having access to my chest freezer and bulk goods is helping immensely with eating enough food. Monday, I also repaired my Unihertz Tank Mini of its bricked screen, which I broke back in December. I was so pleased with myself at fixing it, worked great except....the MMS receiving problem. It didn't have this issue back in December but it does now so I'm still using my backup phone since I can't get group texts at all. I've tried some stuff but so far nothing has fixed it. Deeply annoying.

I'm going to a trans meetup group on saturday hopefully to start meeting people. I like my parents but honestly, I need to spent time with people that aren't them or employees. Crafting night has been deeply helpful with this as well

Comments

[graydon]

Hurrah for eating enough!

MMS ought to be all software? I'd wonder if the SIM card maybe got a bit bent or scuffed or something.

[unicornduke]

I wrote out the issue badly, it is all software related. Group texts work just fine on backup (network approved) phone, but switch to unihertz phone with goggle messages and it doesn't. Verizon used to have its own messages app which worked fine until they discontinued it. Known issue with unihertz phones I guess. Back when I first got the tank, I switched to the Textra app and it fixed the problem, but not any longer, so some update broke it more.

[graydon]

Well, bother.

Might be worthwhile to give the fossify messaging app a try?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.fossify.messages

I don't think I've ever sent a group text, so I'm not hugely confident about this, but they do say they support MMS and it's otherwise reliable and probably not selling your texts.

[rmc28]

I had a different problem with Google Messages which was it sending my messages "from" the phone number originally on my SIM when I changed networks, not the number I ported to the new network (which I've used since 1999, and ported across multiple phone contracts and SIMs and companies over the years.) So my family etc were like "who's this?" and there was literally no documentation or help I could find to make it stop.

I installed the Chomp message app and that sends messages from my ported number as it should.

[ranunculus]

Yay for getting stronger. I always loved the feeling of really using my body. These days it is less of a pleasure as arthritis kicks in, but still...
You may find that some things around the farm didn't actually get done in the last year or so. I'm finding that I just cannot push myself the way I used to. Grrrr. Like today, I hit a brick wall at about 6 hours of burning. Just couldn't do any more.
Have fun at your meetup!

[unicornduke]

It's so nice to move around all day and do things. We're getting into tractor stuff too, so a half day of physical work and a half day of tractor work is really nice too. I know there are lots of things that didn't get done and it's fine. I think the highest priority are the structure related things, like there's been some damaged sections of roofs that haven't been repaired on the barn and metal shed, so I'm hoping to get those fixed in the next two or three months.

[ranunculus]

Yes, fixing roofs... really makes a difference to building maintenance!! This summer I need to look at both the Red Barn and the Iris Barn roofs. Both have one or two leaks. Sigh.

[kareina]

The getting stronger part sounds fun! I stopped at "just take away the gender markers", rather than going to "and lets add some gender markers I didn't start with". I would enjoy the extra strength, but wasn't willing to risk that I might lose some hair, so I will never get that joy.

My condolences to your dad, though. Seeing a reduction in strength doesn't sound at all pleasant.

[unicornduke]

Yeah, there's many things I'd like changed with the systems around this, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the physical changes so far. My dad went bald at 25, so I'm keeping a close eye on my hair since I like my hair, but the other aspects have been so good that I'm willing to risk it.

I think he's handling it okay, there's always the computer work that he's so good at too. And I need his advice on many things. I think he's adapting okay to the decreased physical stuff.

[reedrover]

Your mulching machine sounds like good farm fun. I love driving the tractor and working the backhoe, in particular. I’m also proud that I can move barn waste better than Achaosofkittens.

From your descriptions, you are taking over the farm at just the right time. I’m sorry your dad isn’t as strong as he was and I’m glad you are enjoying solid gains from both work/food and T. One of my friends who helps out here says it’s like being a reverse Hulk - he gets so happy when he bulks up and hulks out.

Seven pounds of potato seeds is a lot. I hope you’ve got lots of good additives to get the soil loose and mounded.

[unicornduke]

Those tasks are quite fun! There's skill in doing it fast and well and it takes a lot of practice to get good at it.

It is a good time I think, all this plus the church stuff. Probably the actual time would be have been two or three years ago, but they kept putting me off. I think the physical stuff plus mom's unwillingness to keep going on the farm pushed them into this.

Lots of potatoes! I wanted to get my favorite variety, Baltic Rose, which is red skin, yellow flesh and the most buttery tasting potato I've ever eaten. It's also higher yielding than a lot of other potato varieties that we did in the work trials. Only downside is that it doesn't store as well as some other varieties but oh no, I'll just have to eat lots of potatoes, terrible!

[reedrover]

Knowing where potatoes originally come from, the name “Baltic Rose” cracks me up!

[unicornduke]

Oh yeah, the things we do to potatoes these days are wild

[reeby10]

I felt the same way when I had to move back in with my parents for a few months before moving cross country. It's a weird time! But I think it does get better after being able to build up a good routine again. Like being able to eat better, yay!