unicornduke | Entries tagged with work

dingus: me

I got in the work car yesterday morning and the battery light was on. Weird I thought, but if it's just a low battery, then running the car will charge it. It started up just fine and I drove away. Well. I got five minutes down the road, realized my phone wasn't being charged, the car started making weird vibrating noises and things Weren't Right. I pulled a U turn in a driveway and drove home. 30 seconds into the drive back, the electrical in the car completely turned off. There was nothing. The engine was still running, I had gas and brakes and steering, but since there was no power, power steering doesn't work. I made it to the bottom of our driveway and finally stalled the car out.

I suspect the alternator went. I called my team lead and asked if he had time to handle this, since it had to go through fleet and someone had to pay for a tow. He said he could so I hopped in my truck and went and got my time sensitive field work done. By the time I got home at 5, the car had been towed. According to F, the tow guy charged it with a battery pack and drove it onto the tow truck. It's been taken to a dealership to be handled, so it's all out of my hands.

So if your vehicle has a weird warning light, don't drive it! Although if I had attempted to drive it to somewhere to get it fixed, I would have gotten stranded. So shrugs. This isn't actually the first time a vehicle's alternator has gone on me, if you just keep the engine going, you can keep driving it (slowly and carefully).

Anyway, my mouth infection is to the point where it no longer hurts and I'm probably done taking ibuprofen for it but I'm going to finish the antibiotics fully since I can tell there's still two more little hotspots that aren't quite infection free.

Managed to schedule a visit to my parents to help with the fall business over a work event that is on that same weekend. Weekend work happens so rarely, I didn't even check my work schedule for it. So now my options are: skip going that weekend (not ideal), go during the week before or after since I can take days off to make up for the weekend, or go the weekend before, which interferes with the local sheep and wool festival.

Arg

and I got stung by a bee today.

1. I was at my parents over the weekend, didn't really feel like I was working hard, but at the end of the weekend, I had cleaned 2/3 of the garlic, mowed the grass in the raspberries, some of the blueberries and the tops off the weeds in the new strawberry planting, built a jig for assembling pallet wood racks/holders then assembled three of them (take one pallet, lay on it's side in the jig, cut four triangles of shitty old plywood, stick other two pallets in jig so it forms a U shape, screw triangles onto exposed side to attach all pallets, flip upright and attach other two triangles, tadaa you have a wood storage unit that can be forked), and cultivated one of the strawberry fields. And did a half day of remote work. If anyone wants mediocre garlic (small or has blemishes), for the cost of shipping them to you, I can send whatever quantity of garlic you would like (biosecurity laws apply!). I have 3/4 bushel here that I can mail out. Message me! I'm pausing growing garlic for at least a year or two, but I'm selling my seed stock to a friend who will sell it back to me for the same price when I start growing it again.

2. I played a lot of video games over the weekend, which is partly why I felt like I wasn't doing much. I had been on a Zeldy kick when my wrist hurt but I think I'm going to leave that for winter when I have more consistent time to keep track of missions and the narrative and stuff. I did start playing a game called Vintage Story (terrible name), which is essentially, Minecraft but with a focus on survival and crafting. So all the good things about Minecraft mods. You start out with literally nothing and need to knap stones, form clay and make your own food. Fighting is less useful, there are some monsters but mostly it's starvation and the wolves that get you. Delightful fun. It has singleplayer and multiplayer and I've got a singleplayer game with mods and a multiplayer game with my sister going.

3. Work is in a weird lull. I'm taking advantage of it right now, working from home today and Friday, which means goofing off since there's not a ton to be done right now. Yesterday was checking traps in the rain, which wasn't too bad. Tomorrow is spraying a trial and taking pictures of equipment to put together a manual for using said equipment. Cabbage harvest Thursday morning.

4. Garden stuff. I brought back two bales of straw from my parents and this afternoon I'm going to weed the garden and mulch the hell out of it. Then water it a ton. Biggest issue right now seems to be water retention, which is obviously a problem growing in sand with little dirt under it. This fall I'm going to get a truck load or two of compost and then mulch more straw over it. I did finally break my push mower two weeks ago, it never ran well but it was $100 from the front yard of a guy who repaired small engines when I really needed it last year. I'm currently debating whether to buy a used one on craigslist or new. I will probably be getting a self propelled mower, mainly because I kept putting off mowing because I didn't want to mow the hill. It's too steep for a riding mower, so I think self propelled is the way to go. If I do buy a new one, I need to decide between gas or battery and the increased cost for those sorts of questions. The grass is getting long so I need to figure that out soon. I do need to mow more often to keep the mosquitos down in the yarn and make it easier for Mara to get around.

5. Mara is doing well, she's got more energy and is getting up on her own about half the time. She did have stomach troubles yesterday but they seem to be a one off and she seems back to normal now.

1. I've been watching the great british baking show professionals and while interesting to watch actual professionals do very cool desserts, the joking goofy tone of the hosts really doesn't work well with the extra serious contestants, who mostly ignore them or give them short answers.

2. I made lemon bars on sunday and they are incredibly delicious. The recipe is from America's test kitchen gluten free book #1 and it's just so good. I ate four of them on sunday along with oatmeal. This led to unpleasant consequences since those shouldn't be the only things consumed in a day.

3. wrist is almost 100% back to normal. I did knitting yesterday, a little spinning this morning and am currently knitting now. I also made a jig for heddle making and am currently through 60 of 210 heddles tied. I cut them all the other day, so just tying. Hilariously, I posted about tying heddles on my instagram and someone commented and said "hey you should check out this seller who makes heddle jigs" and I was like, why would I buy one when I already made one???? it was free because I already own a piece of smooth 2x4 and finishing nails. weird

4. Mara has very goopy ears and I think it's been bothering her. The vet gave me ear cleaner for her a month ago and I finally used it tonight and she was incredibly upset with me for doing that. She's also losing hair under her chin and has weird scabbies there which is unrelated. She's up to date on her heartguard/frontline and it looks more similar to last year when she had a skin infection on her side. She has a checkup for the pain pills continuing on Thursday anyway, so I'll be mentioning it. Only difference from last week that I've seen is she's a bit wobbly when she gets up, but not a ton more than she had been in the past. Still seems happy enough. Except when I clean her ears

5. we harvested cabbages today at work, the beginning of the cabbage epic. We planted approximately 2000 (small, 2-3.5lb) cabbages and they are ready to harvest. Probably only 1500 of them will actually produce marketable crop, but that's still a lot. I've been coordinating to take them to the regional food bank, estimated delivery to them on thursday will be 400 cabbages with the second harvest tomorrow.

The admin tasks have been split among the folks at my level, since two of them left in the spring, the tasks got pushed slightly onto me and mostly onto someone in a different department. She's not doing a good job at it. But I don't want to do it. The admin tasks are my least favorite tasks. She just doesn't remember to do stuff. Whatever.

I'm working from home today since it's supposed to rain all day. Hasn't really, mostly some drizzle but more storms later. Next week looks very promising for some sunshine and not too hot or humid. We may even get overnight temperatures in the 50s! Nice and cool.

I spent time in the garden on Wednesday, pulling weeds and harvesting some flowers for dyeing. Someday I'll get to that. My wrist is improving, it's not hurty sore as much, just slightly tiny sharp pains which is recovering. I think within a week I'll be better enough to get back to things. I did remember about tablet weaving, which doesn't bother me and my heddle twine should arrive today as well. So my plan for this weekend is to bake (lemon curd and something else), wash a fleece or two, tablet weave and make a jig for heddles.

Mara is doing about the same as she was, has energy, is eating, the pain pills work. I'm picking up her next dose tonight and since it's out of the way, I'm getting take out arepas from the restaurant that is only two minutes out of the way getting home. Yummy corn and cheese.

Just actually sat down and did the $$$ math on potential new job. Went something like this:

Summer (May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sept) - commute 4 days/wk -> 16 commute days/mth x 5 mths = 80 commute days/yr
Spring/Fall (Apr, Oct) - commute 3 days/wk -> 12 commute days/mth x 2 mths = 24 commute days/yr
Winter (Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar) - commute 1 day/wk -> 4 commute days/mth = 20 commute days/yr

Total of 124 commute days.

Said commute is 88 miles one way, 176 miles round trip

total miles commuting is 21,824 miles. Using federal mileage reimbursement for 2023 of 65.5 cents per mile, that puts my commute cost at:

$14,294

Potential increase in salary? gone. It only would make a difference if the 8% raise kicks in but I'm not relying on that. So uhh. not taking the new job if I don't make more money and I have to drive 3 hours a day. I could take part time shifts at the local employee owned gas station chain and come out ahead.

Well I went and met the potential new job team on Monday and they're all nice people who are willing to let me work mostly independently and it would have some flexibility as long as the (in-person) work get done. I know how it goes and in the summer it would be 3-4 days a week in person. I'm going to flip a coin later today, I have no idea. At the end of the day, current job has more free time, less responsibility and nonsense wrt higher ups. New job has independence, money and a long commute. No clue. Am I wanting to stay in current job because switching jobs is a hassle?

In other news, I took yesterday off work and sheared sheep. Sheared 14! It went super well and I had a nice time.

I will say, that I think I'm doing too many things generally and I need to cut back on stuff. Not sure what, but something. Maybe since shearing is basically over, that will free up some brain space but who knows.

I appreciate all the comments everyone left on the last post about the job stuff. I'm still not any closer to making a decision and I'll be meeting the other team members on Monday.

Two days ago when it was 90f and I spent the day weeding, I said it made sense to take the new job. Literally yesterday, I was going with staying.

Current job pros - flexibility with time off, able to work from home 100% when not in the field, no big project responsibilities since I'm supporting other people, half of the projects I'm currently on are fun and interesting, good supervisor, fleet vehicle (for now), I'm established, good amount of field work that I enjoy

Current job cons - team leaders and lack of interest in pushing against things that are crappy for me and other team members, no advancement possible (unless I get a masters remotely), low pay, uncertainty in team leadership and future, half of the projects are tedious

New job pros - significantly higher pay, increased time off (less likely to get time off in the field season than current job but more overall time), more responsibility and better or more advanced projects that I would be in charge of, career advancement (possibility of masters), more interesting

New job cons - commute, fully grant funded (although it sounds stable and reasonable to get that grant renewed), more time at work and less flexibility than current job in general, more responsibility (obv both good and bad)

I think if the new job was closer, it would make a lot more sense. But at this distance I'm not sure. I think at the end of the day, this actually comes down more to what my overall goals are. more money + more responsibility = setting myself up for success in this field and money is helpful even if I plan to head back to my parents farm. but current job allows me the time and flexibility to shear sheep and move more in the direction of shearing full time plus farm work eventually heading back to my parents farm.

So I'll need to make the decision this week and I'm no closer to making that decision.

Still thinking about the job thing. I keep going back and forth. Part of it is that I am stagnating in my current job to some extent and the nonsense around my job position description changing gives me no confidence in the system. But I do like my supervisor, she lets me do fun projects of my own and the other two folks I support are fine. The stress is relatively low for an agriculture job and I get a lot of freedom to do things

The commute for the new job though. The salary really is canceled out when I poke at the costs. Depending on where I go, some of the mileage will be reimbursed but from the job location. So it might be closer to me but based on the distance from campus, I'd be reimbursed on that.

arg. arg arg arg. I dunno. It's a great opportunity but the costs are high.

Anyway, last week was hecking busy and this week is also hecking busy. I spent three days at C's place taking care of her cat, chickens, greenhouse and high tunnels because her partner's adult kid was killed in an accident across the country last Sunday and they had to fly out. That was stressful because it was incredibly sunny and hot and then one night it was potential frost and everything needed to be opened/closed at the right times. I hosted the fiber gathering thursday night, which was not well attended but I don't actually care because we'll get some more people next time once the blurb goes in the newsletter. Friday I went to my parents'. Saturday was a memorial gathering for my uncle who passed back in October. It was good to catch up with all the people I hadn't seen in a while. Lots of food.

Sunday and monday was cultivating strawberries with my favorite tractor, the international 140 cultivating tractor and driving. the 140 is a gas powered tractor from the 50s, with an offset engine block and cultivating spades under the tractor so you can see the rows as you cultivate them. it's delightful even if it is a little cranky. no power steering and it's funny about it's oil.

this week is full day of work tomorrow, shearing a sheep tomorrow night, at least a half day of work thursday, possibly shearing sheep thursday afternoon. full day of work friday probably.

I dunno!

I was offered the job I interviewed for two weeks ago. I got the call on Friday and had a really good conversation with the team manager about the position, the expectations and all the other things. Money range is 48-50k with an expected 8% increase since the union is currently working on that increase. Before increase, it is about 15k more than I make currently. Bumps would be COL increases or if I get a degree. Employees get free degrees if they want

The main concern is the drive. It's 1.5 hours drive to campus, with field work potentially being more than that. But in talking to the team leader, she said that we could work with that, with some days being work from home and some days being in the field with obvious seasonality to it. She also said that we could potentially have me cover the half of the state closer to where I live.

I'm leaning towards taking it, it's a step up in a career (idek if I give a shit about that), a big bump in money and a lot of driving.

I put off making a decision by asking if I could meet the team members that I'd be working more closely with and she agreed that it was a good idea first. It seems like they really want me to work for them and want my experience in small fruit production. It would be a big change though and a lot more time. It is a campus job though, with good benefits and vacation time. The team is small but independent and has decent funding.

Hmmm

last week was so busy. thankfully work was quieter on tuesday and wednesday so I mowed the yard and did a little spinning to rest up a little after last weekend's adventure

Wednesday, I got a text from someone asking if I was available that night or the next morning to shear two sheep. They were being slaughtered the next afternoon. I could do that night only, so I headed over. He wasn't able to catch one of the sheep so I sheared one of them and the sheep was a jerk. But the fleece was nice so there was that.

Next day, I was out doing field work all day. Went home, went to the weaver's guild meeting which was fun. Someone had brought a ton of yarn to destash so I grabbed a bunch of yarn. I showed off my plaid, which I still need to make a post about.

Friday, Mara came to work with me at C's place since I was heading to my parents' afterwards. More field work! Hot and sweaty day. Drove down to my parents and sat around that night.

Saturday and Sunday was planting strawberries all day. We finished Sunday afternoon!

Drove home Monday morning as soon as I could because I had an interview at 3pm that was an hour and a half drive away. Got home at 11:30, ate food, unloaded some of the stuff from my truck, threw on clean nice clothes and hit the road. Interview was good, conversational. Drove home. Had crafting.

This week should be less busy. Fieldwork two days, plus a half day shearing potentially. Tomorrow is driving day but easy. Nothing on the schedule for this weekend yet, which will be nice.

thing they all have in common: this week

Since there was rain and wind predicted all this week, including this weekend, I was out at C's two days getting things done. We put out the tarping trial (4 treatments, four replicated, with two treatments getting tarps so 8 little (12'x24') tarps went out), bed preparation for the onion bulbs for seed, which was a lot of putting perennial weeds including the tiny little shits I hate so much. I don't know their name but they produce seed and propagate by roots but their roots are tiny, so they break very easily when you try and pull them up. And they make a lot of sprouts! But they don't grow super deep so I could dig an area up and find all the roots that way. We also made sandbags for the tarps!

We got the onion bulbs in the ground outside the tunnel, which dried faster than in the tunnel, but we'll get those in the ground this coming week. We also transplanted onions for bulbs this year, which is a three person job with the water wheel transplanter. It technically isn't a work task, so I do it after we finish all the work stuff for the day, but C says it requires someone competent to do it and she has yet to find another worker who is decent at planting. It does require back muscle to get the middle row planted. I enjoy it and get a little cash.

I went home on Friday and went to family dinner and ended up being very tired. I was given an Ashford traditional spinning wheel by F's mom, which I forgot to bring home, but F and B remembered. Fiber Fourth Thursdays are a go! So me and B will be "hosting" a fiber get together every fourth Thursday from 6-8pm at her sister's farm, which I think will be fun. The ashford wheel can be a teaching wheel or if someone wants it.

Yesterday and today, I was doing spinning demonstrations at our local county fiber tour! I was planning also to do shearing demos, but yesterday didn't feel spectacular (headache and little bit of nausea that was gone this morning), so ended up handing my sheep over to J to finish while I went back to spinning. But today, I felt good and did one of the demo shears, which went very well! I really enjoyed chatting to people about spinning, lots of interesting questions and lots of knitters and people curious about fiber stopped by.

I took my CPW (Canadian Production Wheel, picture here) to spin on, since it's big and pretty and spins really fast. I also took the fleece that I got from this farm last year, a beautiful Cotswold-Dorset cross fleece, which I don't have any pictures of but will get some for the monthly goal post. I got almost a full bobbin spun between the two days from combed top, which I only worked on first thing when I got there since the combs are kind of dangerous. It was pouring rain Saturday morning when we set up, but stopped by noon. It didn't rain at all today which was great. Decent crowds!

A friend of the farm stopped by yesterday and dropped his CPW off to be sold, since he was trying to get rid of some wheels and he was keeping his family heirlooms. Given that CPWs are not beginner wheels (big drive wheel means very fast spinning and it has to be fine), there was a couple of people who thought it was neat but didn't buy it. The other spinner there said she already had five wheels and really couldn't bring another home. So I bought it. I've already posted on the CPW forums about selling it, so it should leave pretty quickly since I don't have room for two giant wheels. Someone has in fact just messaged me about the wheel while I was typing this up, 30 minutes after I made the post. So it should head out again very fast.

Busy weird week ahead. One solo shearing set up for tuesday and a big shearing day with J set for Friday. Then I'll be at MD Sheep and Wool on Sunday, so if you happen to be going, feel free to message and we can meet up for a bit!

Feeling much better now with three days of hard work in the last three.

Wednesday I took off work other than night class and sheared sheep with J. It was a bunch of different stops and I had to leave the loop unfinished because I had to get back to the house for the 7pm work class. Got home at 6:35, managed to walk Mara, shower and grab my warmed pizza and sat down at my desk at 6:55. I sheared a bunch of different sized sheep, which was very fun. Two babydoll southdowns, which was learning to shear over their eyes because of the wool that grows right around their eyes. I got to watch J shear merinos, which was an educational experience. Three shetlands, a Romney lamb and one huge mystery sheep. Huge mystery sheep showed up at that particular farm and is probably a meat sheep that ran away from another farm. He was huge. Probably around 250lbs. I weigh 165. But! I sheared him with only a little bit of help to hold his head at one point, so that was fun!

Yesterday, I went to C's place and we seeded things! We seeded 2000 cabbage seeds for a tarping trial, it's big, it's complex and thankfully those are mini-head cabbages. So it could be worse. Then we seeded lettuce, which was much faster. I picked rocks which was a hilariously easy task since those fields don't have many rocks and none were even the size of my head. We had a good laugh about it, but her partner thinks this is so many rocks! He's from the Netherlands and has farmed on a lot of river bottom lands. Not many rocks there.

Today I went back to C's because she is going to run a workshop tomorrow about making seed screens. We weren't sure how many people there would be, how extensive the workshop would able to be so we went to town. I had cut all the hardware cloth to size earlier this week so this was cutting wood and assembling frames. The goal was to have enough assembled screens that we could give participants a fully assembled screen and then give them the other two screen sizes and they could make the other ones. We ended up doing most of that plus cutting and drilling the wood to hand out. It was a fun day of carpentry. I did get my first sunburn of the season and didn't have sunscreen on me because in the last few weeks, I was able to get a work vehicle! And I haven't figured out what stuff needs to live in it yet. Sunscreen. Not a bad sunburn but I usually try and manage my sun exposure for the first two or three weeks of spring and then discontinue the sunscreen usage once I've tanned properly enough not to burn.

I'm going to try and get the chainsaw working tomorrow, the oil cap isn't closing properly so I need to fiddle with it. I'm hoping to get the small trees taken down and lopped up for burning soon, so I can put up the fencing around the back yard for my plants and for Mara. We'll see.

Then I'm going to make boston creme pie this weekend, because A's hens are laying so many eggs and they try not to have them for sale too long (even if they're good still) so now we have 11 dozen eggs in the basement fridge. Boston creme pie uses a full dozen and I made a list of baked goods that use a lot of eggs. I'm not overly fond of savory egg texture although quiche is okay so I'll be baking a lot!

I made maple banana cream pie this weekend since I had bananas and cream I needed to use up. It turned out super tasty, not too sweet despite the 1/4 cup of maple syrup. I made a crust with some coarser ground sorghum and rice flour and the texture was good and crunchy, I just needed to get the crust a little thinner and it would have been perfect.

I'm back on work emails today, so many emails. Busy week ahead too. The difficult project has been getting out to my coworker's place to look at garlic mites because it is tedious as hell. 10 bags of garlic, we pick 5 heads from each, peel every clove, photograph, inspect for mites, take a slices sample if it does look like mites and photograph under microscope to confirm. It takes most of a day to do one rep and I think we've got two more to go.

The storm on Saturday gave us a wet 4 inches of snow and it's been 40f the last few days, so it's melting and refreezing each night. But at least I cleared the driveway relatively easily.

Sidejob stuff is continuing to be busy, I've got 8 plans in the queue and since I'm teaching the work class on Wednesday and Thursday nights, I don't work on them at all during the week. But I've been cranking through 3-4 each weekend so I should catch up soon if they don't give me more. Which they probably will. Oh well. Money is good.

Mara's having trouble with her back legs, she's still getting up and down okay, but in the last three or four months, she's lost all the muscle that used to be above her hips and shoulders and it now kinda bony. I managed to feed her weight back up after the antibiotics in september to treat a skin infection when she was down to 85 lbs. Most times she stands on her own okay but if the surface is at all slippery, she needs help up. Still going to the bathroom okay, so I don't think we're at the point of harnesses to help. She also still seems in good spirits and is eating well and in fact, spent a solid 20 minutes yesterday wandering around on the balcony and barking her head off. Which was after the fenced play area 5 minutes of barking at the woodpeckers. She's a good dog.

I'm getting excited for spring and growing things although the weather has decided to keep us in winter for now. I need to get the garden space measured out and mapped so I know how much growing space I'll have. I'm doing a big grow out of chickpeas for sale at my coworker's place, partially as a work thing and partially because it'll be fun. I'm doing a bunch of direct seeded crops, corn, sorghum and cowpeas since those all are things I eat regularly. Especially now that I've gotten in to the habit of grinding sorghum for flour. I will be doing dye plants in the bed by the house and using the sand pile for some things too. Not too many tomatoes or peppers, but something I can save seed from probably. I've got one chickpea that I want to grow out but I'm going to wait a year since I only have 20 seeds or so and the company selling them doesn't have them this year and they're relatively rare.

I think maybe this weekend I'll try and do some natural dyeing of fleece. I've been thinking about it for a while and I want to do it! Starting with the dried flowers and then moving to the barks that I bought at NEFF in November. I also have a bunch of indigo that I didn't have time to use and threw in the freezer so it'd be interesting to see if that's still usable.

Last week was pretty rough. Conference preparation went well and we went into it as prepared as we could be but conferences are stressful, full of silly occurrences and there's always too many people. About four people total wore masks including me, and then there was a few hotel staff who also were wearing masks. I've been happy with my N95s and I managed to not be the person checking growers in, but getting their nametags so I was partially facing away from them. Not that it would have made a difference given how small the area of our check in tables were. Oh well.

And then this morning, got the email that someone on our team and a speaker tested positive so *shrugs* I'll test this week but I'm probably good. It's almost as if no one wearing masks is bad actually.

After the conference each day, I went home, walked Mara and then took a rest in my bed for as long as I could. It wasn't super restful because after evening walks is Mara's borking hour, the time when she borks at nothing really. So it was loud.

The two evening seed lectures went well, I taught for one of them about legume seed production and it went well. Right before the second one, my coworker who had only helped with Wed of the conference was like, "are you okay, because I'm exhausted" and at the time I was shoveling frozen mac and cheese into my face and that was really bringing me back.

Thursday morning was the snow/ice/rain storm but the plows were sort of out that morning and I bet that the roads would be better earlier in the morning, so I left before 7am and drove to the hotel. Went in various sections in 4 wheel drive and going 35, mainly backroads that were mostly snowy still. Worst section was actually the main highways because it had turned to slick slush between the lanes, so I flipped it to 4wheel for merging and sharper turns. I got to the hotel no problem with only an extra 10 minutes due to slow driving. I think the morning commute got rained on but I missed it and by the time I left at 4 that afternoon, it was all good.

I took Friday off and sat and spun yarn pretty much the whole day. It was awesome.

Saturday, I ran for groceries and as a reward for doing that, allowed myself the rest of the morning to make fig newtons. They turned out a little odd, too much moisture in the dough but very delicious as always. I had sidejob work requests piling up over the past two weeks, so that afternoon, I buckled down and got three of them done. I'll keep working on those this week and should make a dent in the remaining ones.

Sunday I went to the last Whale home game. It was a super fun game, the crowd was really excited and some of the discord folks came to the game and met me in the stands for a bit. There was also an autograph line afterwards and I got some things signed. It was Shannon Turner's last home game before she retires (she's played for the whale for 8 years since the beginning of the league and has been captain for like six of those) and even when the team was doing terrible, she was still cheerful and having a good time and it was so great, so I told her that and she hugged me. So that was nice.

Hopefully a more relaxing week this week, seems like it so far. We had an inch of snow Saturday and we are due for 5-8 inches tonight into tomorrow so I'm prepared to go nowhere.

Work stuff is going at speed, I'm writing a presentation on how to grow legumes for seed and it turns out I haven't taken a single photo of processing pea, bean or cowpea seed in the last four years. Amazing. I'll snag some pictures from the internet I guess (source given).

The first two seed meetings went very well, good attendance and good discussions. We had to rein our speakers in since one of them decided he was just going to do whatever he wanted despite all our outlines. There were several emails about it afterwards. He was cranky because he felt that the outline of the entire seven week course was terrible despite him having access to it for months, we've talked about it for months and decided it was fine months ago. But the day before I think he actually looked at it and was irritated. Ugh.

Saturday I got the oil changed in the snowblower and got fuel for the chainsaw mixed. I didn't do the oil in the lawnmower because it's the kind you need to tip upside down to change and I knew there was still fuel in it. I didn't feel like letting it sit and run out of fuel so I skipped it. I really need to empty it before winter next time. Also didn't have enough oil for the generator so I'm picking some more up tomorrow and will change that soon. I did get a lot of burning done, almost all of the junk wood pile is gone and I spent some time wandering around the backyard picking things up and moving them to the correct place. Like the metal pipe I found in the brush is now in the scrap metal pile. The shed stuff pile below the balcony is almost gone which is awesome.

Hockey game yesterday was super fun! The Whale won their game 6-4 and it was a dramatic and fun game. I took a sign and apparently the broadcasters thought it was very good because they showed it three different times lol.

This week, I'm working from home today, in the office/conference center tomorrow, then conference center wed/thurs all day, hopefully leaving by 5 to get home in time for the seed meetings in the evening. Thursday's weather is looking nasty, sleet, freezing rain all day. Ugh.

I'm taking Friday off work to lay around and play video games. Or possibly do the sidejob work I've got waiting for me, I need to send an email to one person and say it'll be delayed another week. Sunday, another hockey game!

This past weekend, I went down to my parents to help them tap maple trees. It was three of us, climbing up and down the mountain all day and we got all 600 taps done in a day! It went great! It wasn't too cold or too warm, the snow had all melted off the mountain and we sat around a fire for lunch. Dad has a good system for the runs, so each line is numbered and we texted each other which line we were on as we went along it plus if we found any issues (spouts missing, animals biting lines, downed trees, etc)

I'm not too sore, which is good. My ankles and knees were a little ouchy at the end of the day but I sat under a heated blanket and at this point, the only bit of soreness is in my hip flexors and I was able to walk Mara up the ridge just fine this morning.

This is the view from the very top of the runs and between the creek and the mud, we actually walk up from the valley. It's pretty steep. The good news is that we get lots of breaks as we do the tapping. Tapping process is: drill hole with battery powered drill (bring the extra battery in a pouch or pocket), scrape the wood bits from the hole with a little wire hook, grab the drop/spout from the line and hammer it in until it makes a thunk sound, move on!

A view looking through trees to the mountain across the way. The tree tops drop off sharply below. There are blue maple tapping lines running down the hill.

A view looking through trees to the mountain across the way. The tree tops drop off sharply below. There are blue maple tapping lines running down the hill.

The next two weeks are kinda bonkers busy. I'm in the office today doing paperwork entry. Tonight crafting, tomorrow night video games with the family. I have two meetings tomorrow, one for my sidejob, one for work. The weekly evening webinars on wed and thurs for the seed course start this week, so I'll have a little afternoon time free but my free evenings are taken up. Thurs afternoon it's supposed to be 60f and sunny (okay I guess??) so I'm doing a burn of junk wood and sorting things that need to go into the shed still. Saturday is small engine maintenance day. I need to buy non ethanol gas, engine oil and gas stabilizer for the generator, snowblower, lawnmower and chainsaw, change the oil on all of them, get the generator into it's new home (F and her BIL poked at the generator switch and all that stuff over the weekend and we can run the water pump and heater off our generator! woo! and the switches are all hooked up properly! woo!). Sunday I'm going to the whale hockey game.

Next week, monday crafting and tuesday gaming again, then work conference all day (probably 6:30 am arrival to the hotel conference center to ??? time at night) is tues/wed/thurs although tues is mostly a preparation day. the evening webinars wed and thurs. I'm already tired! Fun!

The university is giving all staff a bonus and since I'm earning under 50k, it's a thousand dollars and will be paid next week with my next paycheck.

Huh

Monday was a dang day. We got six inches of snow, most during the day. That part was just fine. I spent part of the day packing for the retreat and went to snowblow around 1pm which was after most of the snow had fallen but enough time to get it done before I had to leave.

I got most of the driveway done, wet heavy snow so the blower wasn't too happy. And then I hit a small rock in just the right way and it jammed into the auger and snapped the shear pin. I didn't know that at the time, I had to use a hammer and small wedge to get the rock out of the auger because it was so jammed in between the auger and the shield. Got the rock out and realized the auger on that side didn't spin. Used the half of the blower still working to finish most of the rest of the drive and shovelled a bit once I got to a steep part of the driveway and it was too difficult to use.

Then went and spent some time investigating what really broke. Quick googling told me there should be a shear pin, which, duh. Found it and spent 15 minutes extracting it since it had sheared in a way that broke the pin and bent some of the metal sideways so it could only come out of the hole one way, the more difficult way.

I had to leave by 5pm to head to the retreat, so I walked Mara, showered and hit the road during the snow. Our backroads weren't great but I got onto some bigger roads and it was fine. On the drive (supposed to be 50 minutes) I, almost hit a deer, got stuck behind two different snow plows going 30mph in 55 zones and ended up adding a half hour onto the drive.

The retreat was good. Only half of the team slept at the airbnb so we were all there monday and tuesday nights. We made tacos for dinner monday night and I had provided brownies and blueberry fruit bars. Tuesday and Wed morning were all team retreat stuff and I felt that it was surprisingly productive and worked through some things that had been issues and my one coworker did a great job of facilitating the whole thing.

We got delicious sandwiches from a deli that I ran and picked up and then went out to a brewery for dinner. Brewery had limited choices regarding gluten free so I went for a fajita bowl which was pretty tasty.

Then today, more snow approached which was why the other half of the team didn't stay. We zoomed them in and sat on the comfy living room chairs and talked through external communications stuff which has been a point of contention within the team for a while but I think we got a solid plan down.

We cleaned up and headed out and since L had bought enough groceries for the whole team to eat, she sent it home with me and a couple other people so now I have eggs for days :)

Mara was cared for by F who did an excellent job taking care of her. I got many pictures of Mara incredibly offended by F following her while on the leash which amused me greatly and apparently she spent a lot of time on the balcony. She's snoring right now and I'm relaxing.

I just sent an email to our HR person asking what promotion would entail, attached a list of education materials I have created, the things I have done with the team and said my supervisor has been unhelpful.

I'm about to send an email to my supervisor and some other people that says basically the same thing. Weeeeeeee

What could go wrong :)

Profile

unicornduke

July 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jul. 6th, 2025 02:05 pm

It is a mystery

Entries tagged with work

Dingus alert

sigh

Five things make a post

five things make a post

Tasks are being done badly but I don't want them

oh no the miles

(no subject)

I'm still agonizing

Arg

decisions decisions

at least that week is done

The weather, onions and spinning

hard work makes for a happy me

Misc Things

The busiest two weeks are over

One busy week down, one to go

Busy weekend, busier two weeks ahead

Huh

Chaos and retreat

Minor kicking of a hornet's nest