It is a mystery

Monday was supposed to be my day off work this week, I spent it setting out row covers and row cover supplies and getting the tractors/sprayers setup for dad. I was supposed to take today off with the INCH OF RAIN, but my dad convinced me that we needed to put the row covers back out for tonight and tomorrow's potential cold so we did that this morning. he wanted to wait until 4 or 6pm tonight when we got another half inch of rain. I said this morning or it isn't happening today because the row covers will just rip if you try to unfold them while wet. I wanted to do it tomorrow night because I don't think it'll freeze tonight with how wet it is and they'd dry out tomorrow. I'm getting real sick of my dad's absolute ridiculous optimism, today's example was: it'll take less than an hour to spread the row covers, it's easy. it took 2 hours and it wasn't easy. I want him away from day to day grunt work and doing special project stuff with no timeline because that's what he's best at. or a deadline but not urgent. 

I did get my grocery shopping done first thing and hit an estate sale where I picked up some fleece fabric and a bunch of linens and blankets new in the bags of various sizes. I always feel bad at estate sales because a lot of times it's clear the person who lived there wasn't having a good time. This person was a crafter clearly but also someone who spent a lot of money on stuff and never used it. The linens were all new in bags, there was fabric ordered online sealed in bags. The house was absolutely packed with stuff and this was the second sale they had put on already and they'll have more in the coming weeks. I also picked up a set of bowls since I own so few sets of dishes. I'm going to store everything I got in the shed for now. 

hormones are giving me hell this week so I have been fighting the pit of despair by eating chocolate chips because I ran out of food to snack on except for those. I got granola bars and snyders of hanover now makes thicc pretzel rods gluten free and they're perfect and wonderful. expensive tho. I guess gluten free oreos aren't wildly expensive relatively so there's that for scaled up production

When am I supposed to make food??? how do people do this??? how did I do this??? my first job out of college I worked 60+ hours a week and it didn't feel like this??? and that was right in the middle of figuring out I had to eat gluten free??

this feeling is exacerbated by my parents. my mom makes all of my dad's food and does all of his laundry and all of the cleaning. literally. every bit of it. and sometimes I get the feeling that he expects me to work the same hours he used to despite the fact that I don't have a wife who does all the housework. I have to fucking eat and make my own fucking food all the time because I can't/won't eat a lot of premade food which is also expensive! My dad is the "how much could bananas cost" meme except old person style because he hasn't gone to a grocery store in 30 years. I suspect this is also the pit of despair talking. thank goodness for my past self making triple batches of pita breads and freezing them. and my rice cooker. all hail my rice cooker. would love to get my instant pot back into the house to use as a slow cooker someday. I managed to cook the hot italian sausage I bought for calzones and have been eating that over rice with marinara sauce, the cheese for ricotta and canned chickpeas. a little odd, very edible. I have supplies for more food, no clue when I'm going to make it .

I don't understand why this is fucking me up so bad. people move back in with their parents all the time. I cohabitate with people. writing out my feelings hasn't helped. not writing out my feelings hasn't helped. I kinda just want someone to pat me gently on the head and tell me I'm doing my best but no one I want to do that is within a three hour drive. actually that list of people is maybe like, two people total, I don't want people touching me. 

anyway, the local drag bingo that was supposed to be next weekend got canceled, which I was looking forward to. I bought tickets for a concert in western MA for august to hang out with B. maybe my sister and her friends are coming to visit in July. but holy shit I need some social time in the next two months. oh wait, that would require days off l o l

the pit of despair is having a lot of feelings right now. I also ran out of fruit a couple days ago so that's not helping. and I ran out of yogurt and couldn't get to the store or had time to make more so my breakfasts weren't normal and I've been out of hazelnuts for breakfast for ages. okay, the pit of despair is very valid for all those feelings, this is too much away from normal routines. I also just ate lunch so hopefully the pit of despair will go away for a little bit. 

Farming work has been going well other than the frost risk so that's been nice, just my personal life is a disaster. We did lose some strawberries to the 21F we had the other day despite the row covers, so there basically was nothing else we could do there. We figured out there was a missing bolt on the plow that would keep the cylinders going sideways and breaking in a specific way. Most of the raspberries are done being pruned. One of the workers and I cranked on the wood mulch pile and reduced it by 2/3 over the last few days and I got a lot of it spread on the blueberries. The strawberry fields have been plowed and disked once. They need fertilizer and a second disking but closer to planting next weekend. I got three sidejob plans done. 

I don't know! I've told my parents both to their faces that I want them to move out and I will help them with whatever needs to happen to make it happen. But I can't force them to. 

A smart person would go make food right now but the kitchen isn't clean enough to bake so I can't make more stuff for this week. I should try and make food tomorrow night but I still have leftovers and we'll have our evening farm meeting tomorrow and then crafting monday and gaming tuesday. arg. I might be able to bake tuesday? if it rains more. maybe. anyway, last PWHL hockey games before playoffs so I'm just crocheting and watching them because that's what I've got. I might see if I can get another sidejob task done today. 

The farm has abruptly moved from winter to summer mode and my to-do list is long and complicated. I have moved into pruning raspberries which is way more unpleasant than blueberry pruning in that the raspberries will try and stab me in the face a lot. A baseball hat helps protect my face but my arms take a beating even with long sleeves. But I'm making good progress. I need to contact all of our workers from last year and figure out scheduling. I have started plowing. I'm currently digging up old drip tape. Doing cleanup of things we didn't get done in the fall. 

We are t minus 3 weeks to strawberry planting so there's a ton to do. Technically we are ahead of where we were last year but also ack. 

The bobcat was down longer than anticipated but all the parts were found and it only took an hour to fix. Ha. It took five hours to take the damn cylinder apart which was a process that we ended up using an eight foot breaker bar attached to a chain around the hitch of the truck via a come along to crack the nut holding things together. Like, human power was simply useless even with the 8 foot bar. But the actual seal replacement and putting it all back together took about an hour. But since I was working with my dad on it, that was a whole day of work that I was set back. I'm trying not to resent it because it was extremely valuable time for learning mechanical skills and spending time with him but also I know how much shit needs to get done and a whole day is a ton of time. 

I have a lot of sidejob work built up that I'm struggling to get through without a lot of time off work. My evenings are pretty busy between crafting, game night and the farm meetings we keep having late at night because that's when we have time to meet. 

I went up to the pottery studio to see if my stuff had been fired but apparently that was happening today despite being assured it would happen within two weeks when I was there a month ago. But the person who owns the studio had done a bulk buy with Azure so I got to ask her a bunch of questions and assured me it was easy to sign up and do. and I know ranunculus has used them before, so I've committed and I'm going to buy a bunch of bulk goods because I've been needing bulk baking supplies. 

I nearly had a meltdown in the grocery store today, I knew going was a bad idea but I needed food and timing wise, I needed to be there later than I would like to be. I'm just tired and not handling things well. 

I have been trying to write up my feelings on the house situation so I stop being mad but honestly my dad used my toothpaste last night because he "couldn't find any other toothpaste" and that is just icing on the annoying cake. The worst part is that they aren't deliberately using my stuff or piling things in front of my stuff or moving my stuff to piss me off. They literally just cannot imagine something in their house not being theirs to use or move around as they want. 

Seriously the most inconsiderate roommates I've ever had and that includes the ones that got busted for smoking pot in the dorm room at college. Part of the problem is that my previous roommates all had schedules that were offset somewhat from mine, so they would be up and using the common spaces slightly offset. They also had social lives and would leave me the fuck alone. Previous roommates also didn't sleep in the living room constantly or if they did, they didn't expect me to be quiet about what I was doing. At least 2 hours, probably closer to 4 hours a day either one of my parents is sleeping in the living room. It's nuts. They had two whole ass bedrooms to use in two different houses, but no, they have to sleep in the room that is joined to the two rooms I use the most (crafting room, my office). Probably I've never just had very inconsiderate roommates? I don't know but my autistic ass is not handling this well. The week while they were away was so lovely. 

I'll admit, I am not exactly coping well with current work stress, parents and also the wider world although I have to say, trump beefing with the pope is just making me laugh so much. Fuck the catholic church but also shoutout to the pope for getting his ass. other than that, fucking stressful.  

I have tweaked a muscle in my neck sometime in the last few days, possibly saturday. I think it was during pruning saturday since I stood up from pruning and was weirdly sore but I have no idea what would have done it. It's fine most of the time except when I turn my head in one direction but that's not the worst it hurts. Worst it hurts is when I'm doing stuff with my arm and turn my head or when I put my elbow on the desk and rest my head on my hand. I can sleep on that side without it hurting. But it's annoying. And makes my shoulder feel funny. I'm trying to baby it but I don't know what hurts it so ??? And honestly, pruning seems to stretch it out and it feels better? So who knows honestly. 

The good news is that I'm nearly done pruning the blueberries, I've got 7 rows left and only one row of the irritating varieties that produce a lot of shoots. Something went wrong with the battery of the electric pruner, I think charging it in the unheated garage when it was below freezing. Now it only holds charge for an hour or two of pruning, so I alternate pruning with something else while it charges. The batteries are really expensive, so we're going to run the winterizing routine as soon as there's a good rainy couple of days or I finish the blueberries, whichever comes first and see if that helps. 

I have been ravenously hungry since I got back from my trip and can't seem to eat enough. I need to make a grocery store run and do some food planning. I've hit the craving fruit point of the season so I've been digging into my chest freezer to bake desserts with fruit. I made a ton of progress on my knitted sweater and actually bound off the sleeves during crafting last night, the end is in sight! 

My dad is making progress on the floor of their house, actual boards are being laid but it won't be finished before his surgery on friday. They will be down at my brother's thursday through monday I think, so I'll get some peace and quiet while they're away. That's okay that the floor won't get done. There is progress.  I need to get his help moving the drywall piece before his surgery, the drywall is upstairs but there's no room to cut it there, so I need help getting it to the front porch. It should be easy to move after I get it cut since the piece will be much smaller. 

Spring is abruptly here, it's been warm and sunny, the crocus have emerged, I uncovered the strawberries the other day and have been sweating as I prune. Ahh spring. Much to do! 

As expected, the time change has absolutely fucked up my sleep schedule. Not helped by a skunk spraying something in the front yard at 4:30am this morning so my bedroom smelled intensely of skunk while I was laying there awake for no reason and the house still smells faintly. We are going to have to trap it if it's living under the porch. And also not helped by covering the boiling for an hour until 10:30pm last night. 

We have successfully started boiling sap although I'm not super involved in it. I don't know what I'm doing, never really have done it, so I panic a lot about it while taking over for my dad so he gets a break. Like last night, the sap started drawing off but the container with the filters nearly overflowed because the filters were ??? and there was some panicking. My dad said it probably wasn't going to draw off at all in the hour he went inside. So you know. Normal stuff. My sister is in town for a couple of days to help with it at least. Once I get some better idea on how it all works, I'll make a post about it. Currently, we are producing delicate grade, which my sister called cotton candy tasting. That changes over the tapping season as the microbes change.

I finished splitting all the basswood on the ground, just need to stack it. Not sure we have quite enough wood for the season, but I think it'll be a bit shorter anyway. I have started shifting focus to the field season, it is time to start outside work. Blueberry pruning is up first since that needs to be done dormant. I should crank through that quick. Then moving and mulching with woodchips. I need to order grow lights for our starts, I need to get peppers started in the next two weeks or so, figure out pumpkin orders, etc etc. 

There's some health stuff going on with my parents that we are waiting to hear on, so I am scaling back farm stuff that was going to be a bit of a stretch to complete. The weird fruits like currants and expanding the elderberries. 

I am working on sidejob stuff and need to bill that client. Need to nap and eat more food. I made chocolate cake and pizza the other night. Also split three loads of wood for the burner once I got the bobcat tire fixed. I took the bobcat tire to the tire place to get fixed on the day we had freezing rain, not my best move and there was only one hairy moment on a backroad until I kicked it into 4 wheel and slowed way down. Skipped that road on the way back. Main roads were fine. The bobcat had to come back to the main farm to pick up the sap totes because of where we put them for good gravity feeding since regular tractor forks can't lift high enough. 

Also went to a grower meeting about christmas trees, looks like a really good enterprise, don't have the capacity this year, but should next year if all goes well. Interesting thing, a lot of the christmas tree farms have been in business for 50-100 years. Wildly long time. 

I keep focusing on farm stuff because the world is such a shitshow. My local rep emailed me some propaganda so I sent back a little rant on how immoral bombing Iran is. I don't think it will do anything. 

But yesterday instead of going to spinning group, I drove an hour and a half to an event put on by the regional trans org which was performances and a makers market and I felt like such shit driving down, but afterwards I was so happy. It was so nice to just see all the queer folks, and so many! And bought some weird art. And saw some performances. What a delight. Did get to talk to someone who is localish to me and they said they are trying to get some more folks together up our way at various places, so I'm excited to keep an eye out for that. 

Friday morning we spread three loads of straw before the wind picked up too much to spread more, personal best for me and I was pretty sore for it. But I sat around the rest of the morning and then went out just before noon to clean bale strings out of the shredder. That went fine, it goes pretty quick if you don't let them build up too much. I was putting it back together, I took my glove off to thread the nut, started tightening it, the wrench slipped and I jammed my left index finger onto one of the shredder blades. To be fair, the nut is under the shredder, so I was working crouched on the ground up over my head (equipment chocked, always always always), but it felt bad. 

The cut is parallel to my fingernail and wraps around the front and went quite deep. I sat on the couch for about an hour after rinsing it and it was still bleeding decently, so I took myself to urgent care. The good news is that they weren't busy at all, so I got seen immediately and it was rinsed and I got a couple stitches in the front of my finger to help stabilize the skin flap. The shot to numb my finger hurt way worse than the actual wound. 

It was bitter cold yesterday morning (3F), but dad and tried to shred straw anyway. However, we are using the Kubota which is the newest tractor and has a very fine mesh fuel filter. And it was so cold that the diesel had thickened and the tractor would start sputtering every time we tried to turn the PTO on. So we gave it up. I went back inside for a few hours. Went to cut some wood and somehow during my cutting ,the chain jumped the track and dinged up the new bar and chain. I think the side nuts loosened up somehow but now the chain won't fit on the track, so I need to see if it can be fixed. Deeply annoying, stupid mistake to not check.

Then I started moving tractors under cover. Even in the afternoon it was so cold and I ended up having to jump the 395 and still need to jump the E this morning. I split a little bit of wood with the 395 while I had it running but there are log chunks so big that I need help rolling them. They're huge. In that time, the wind died down enough and I put the 395 away in the metal shed and headed down to west. It was 11F and the kubota worked fine. We got the last two loads of straw down, working past dark even if I bunged up the final row we did by accidentally dropping two bales off the wagon and being short of what we needed. We were worried about safety after dark with making the step between platform and wagon, but it turns out the hardest part was not seeing the bale strings. Don't recommend, won't be doing that again. 

At some point, I bonked my finger despite my best efforts and reopened it a bit, I think it was the wood splitting or when I whacked it on the railing. Probably not smart to split wood. I have been keeping it wrapped when out working and that's been okay, not too bad to grab bales since I can flex it backwards enough to stay out of the way.

I did drain the downstairs bathroom but I think it froze in the faucet since it was just a trickle that came out once I reopened it. I think I'm going to switch to letting it trickle instead of drain, we are suppose to have overnight temps down around zero all week and it already partially froze. Plus I'm getting tired of having water go down my sleeves when I drain the pipes. And it's annoying to fill the back of the toilet from the kitchen. Toilet line shouldn't freeze since it's closer to the basement. ETA: cleaned the faucet filter and we are back on full blast! going to trickle it at night still

The snow has started here, just about an inch or so but it's coming down fast. The plows went by once already, which is surprising but they are probably going to try and keep on top of it. I haven't seen any vehicles go by, so everyone is staying home if they can which is very good. I need to go pick up the wood I split yesterday and jump the E so we can park it under cover but otherwise we are good. I'm planning to bake today and lay around and do not much useful things

things melted last week and everything was mud, so I got a couple days break from spreading straw. weirdly, my problem elbow hurt more when I wasn't using it constantly than when I was. Not sure what's up with that. The temperature dropped again, so the ground froze again. Did another load at dawn this morning but discovered a belt had worn weirdly on the shredder, so I need to run to town today and get a new one before we shred more. 

The pottery class I was going to take isn't actually available on Wed, their only evening hours are mondays from 5-8 and they only just updated that on facebook and haven't emailed me back. I'm busy that night, so that's out. I could theoretically do day classes but with how short the days are, any daylight is needed for work hours especially if I need extra warmup time between morning and afternoon. ETA: I found another studio with wed classes and easier signup procedures. done.

 I did go to spinners guild on sunday and it was a gosh dang delight including one of the longer term guild members coming this time who is queer in so many ways and everyone was lovely to him. It was so so so nice and relaxing. I think for the next meeting I'm going to get either my electric wheel battery up and running or take my smaller wheel and start an alpaca spin on it. My CPW is too big and loud for the space we've been meeting in. I got there right at 1pm and was still one of the later arrivals, so clearly I need to get there even earlier :)

We have started the wood stove indoors back up, so that's nice. I missed it. We ran out of wood that size and it had gotten warm, so there was less point in running it. Dad got on the roof and cleaned the chimney out while it was off, so that was nice and split some of the wood at the rental into wood stove size for both their house and mine. 

I did kickstart my parents into doing work on their house! I sanded their office floor and then mom cleaned it and we sealed and finished it together. Definitely one of those times where it would have been faster with just one person, but so be it. My dad has been working on their living room wall drywall which is next in line. They do have renters moving into the rental Feb 1, so there is painting to be done there, plus some other small misc stuff. Parents' house also needs paint so I will be helping with some amount of painting. I didn't do drywall in my upstairs bathroom yet as expected, but I'm planning to later this week when dad is around to help me move the drywall outside to cut and then upstairs to get in place. They do have an extremely firm deadline of house renovations of June when my dad's college buddies are coming to visit, so there's that. We did discover that nice foosball tables are extremely heavy and it would be good to have more than two people to get it in a bilco basement door. I didn't get squished but it was very very heavy. After we got it down there, my dad said, you know, I think it did say something about being over 200lbs. hmm. thanks dad. Although we would have had to get a cousin or something to come help, which my parents are slightly allergic to asking for help, so I dunno if that would have happened anyway. We do have a vague plan to get the floor done which is good and there is progress happening. Given my parents hated the smell of the seal and finish, we are waiting to move them into the house until the living room/dining room/kitchen are all sealed and finished. 

Winter is one of those times where I am just sleepy a lot, so I do accept this as a fact of life but also am fully aware that I am relatively isolated from the local area. In NY, I had an established friend groups, I had places I could go when I wanted a little socializing or crafting with folks, all sorts of things. Here I don't have any of that, so I'm trying to find something. Over the summer, I was so busy with the farm that I didn't really notice, but now I really can tell. To be fair, I have three nights a week where I have weekly social opportunities, but they are all digital. I know I need to push myself and get out there but it's hard and farm work is a bit unpredictable with when we need to run for straw and things. So spinners guild was excellent. I'm hoping to go to a meetup this saturday, although I'll be missing gaming with Jade that night for it. I need to do something thur/fri nights. And maybe some saturdays during the day. Hmm.

Almost done, just two group outings left, one Thurs night, one Fri morning. They had been scheduled for the previous Thursday but it rained a lot, so we rescheduled them. I had my employees start cleaning things up yesterday, emptying displays, cleaning up unused tables, etc. Today is the day a lot of people are stopping by to get pumpkins for their animals, so I'll have them pull off the displays and out of bins first, then from the field. 

My to-do list for the next day or two: 

• nap - today, woke up at 3am to use the bathroom, only managed to doze on and off until 7. and I had gone to sleep late. curses upon time changes for sleep schedule disruptions
• grocery store - overdue
• clean out fridge - there are things alive in there that shouldn't be
• fill out a form and mail it
• make pumpkin pie - lots of edible squash left, so I'll keep a bunch and a bunch will go to the food pantry this week
• crack garlic, get rototiller on tractor and plant it real fast

I've been playing video games and relaxing this morning, doing some spinning too. delightful

And the easiest one is last. This week will be busy, we've got three huge daytime outings tomorrow and Wed. I still need to text all my employees today but that might be the last work task of the day. that would be nice. we've got fun things planned for this coming weekend so I just need to make sure we're all ready. 

I need to dig through my yarn this afternoon, I'm planning to sell some at the weavers guild show and sale and the deadline for inventory is Wed. So I gotta get it done. I won't take much, I've barely worked on making things from what I've woven. Just piled it up. I will be tying off my current warp and planning to disassemble it for the move to the house since I'm contemplating how cold that shed will be and deciding I don't need to weave in that. I can't even wear slippers since I need to feel the treadles with my feet. 

I completely mucked up some farm things, my garlic didn't get in the ground and neither did any of the cover crops. mulling over what to do with that, not sure it's worth the seed.

I'm going to nap again today, more the better

Another good busy weekend, excellent practice for the employees. I was very cranky Friday night but pretty sure I hadn't eaten enough lunch or dinner. Much better feeling Saturday, but I also got the chance to drive a tractor at night which was lovely and nice. I was tired again yesterday but that's because it was so hot. 

We picked 24 tall bins of pumpkins this week and 8 short bins of various things. This isn't even half of what we have planted. I'm spending today, tomorrow and wed picking weird stuff because we have definite frost coming wednesday/thursday (predicted 36 and 34F so we'll be lower) and the weird stuff is often frost sensitive. Face pumpkins usually aren't to a light frost. Also rain coming tomorrow night, thank goodness because I haven't irrigated anything arg. Then thurs/fri picking big pumpkins. Plus all the group outings during the weekdays

Did find gluten free fig newtons at the store which is delightful. not as good as my homemade ones, but as good as OG fig newtons so I'm happy. 

Sleep has been hard to find, I get so keyed up with farm stuff by the time I get up to the house, eat dinner and do all the things i need to do, it's 9pm and I'm not quite tired, so I read for a bit. Plus calls and emails and reservations. it is go time. thankfully mom has been feeding me, I know my temper varies entirely by how hungry I am. 

Did enjoy browsing this collection of spindle whorls on the internet archive housed in the cleveland museum of art

much to do this week. at least I will have 2 hours of crafting tonight

Monday, I worked a half day, primarily running errands to pick things up for the farm. I took advantage of this and went to Wegmans and rediscovered how amazing it is. The gluten free section is huge! And clearly labeled! I gotta say though, the gf naan I got is far inferior to the pita bread I've been making. But I stocked up on things and found some new stuff to try. I was particularly impressed by the gluten free soups. 

That night during crafting, I was so fed up with how annoying it was to craft in the hallway between the spare room and my room (because there wasn't enough floor space for a 4 ft folding table to iron and assemble sewing stuff) that I spent an hour and a half of crafting cleaning and organizing. First, I took all the stuff that was stacked in my room that are important, plus all of the blankets and misc stuff that had been living on top of the box piles and tossed them all onto my bed. Then I took all of the boxes of my stuff that was in the spare room (fleeces, roving, yarn primarily) and stacked them up. I did put them in front of one of mom's shelves, but I determined nothing of urgency was on the shelf, reorganized so I could use one small shelf for my delicate keepsakes and then stacked my boxes floor to ceiling in front of the shelf. They are all light and there was enough of a corner next to my dresser that I was able to get three good stacks. this was almost every box I had in the space room. all light but bulky things

Then I took all of mom's bins that were in front of my closet, at the end of my bed and behind my door and put them in the newly cleared space in the spare room on the table there. Then moved my small shelves into my room and they are now usable! Shoved my book boxes, plus big luggage at the foot of the bed in between the bed and a shelf and then put all of my soft stuff onto the shelves. 

So in the end, I actually gained floor space in my room plus storage space plus I can possibly move my little crafting table into my room monday nights. it's so nice!

Then I had an absolutely baffling conversation with my mom which went something like: me: I cleaned my room and reorganized! her: why did you do that without me!!! I needed to look in there for a small bin!!! Me: but you'd turn it into an ordeal! and why would small bin be in my room? and you never mentioned this??? her: I told you I couldn't find small bin so you'd look for it in your room! it's gone forever!!! me: you never said it was in my room??? is that why you told me to keep an eye out for it? her: yes!

turns out I had opened small bin without ever looking at the label on it, been baffled by its contents, moved it to the spare room on top of her pile of stuff and she found it in less than a minute. if I had let her be involved, it would have been probably five hours of nonsense with lots of debate. I love her, but dear god, living with her and working with her on some farm stuff is too much. everything needs to be debated to death and back. the conversations I've had about the baked goods we're going to buy for the fall weekends is so incredibly irritating. I guess I need to get the kitchen in the church up and running so I never need to have that debate again. lol who am I kidding

tuesday night I made rice, curry chicken and roasted delicata squash and chickpeas, ate it all week, so tasty. 

Myself and employees have been slowly harvesting the first pumpkins of the season. Ours are all very late but the specialty stuff is what we need harvested, so tiny pumpkins, gourds, white pumpkins (since they go yellow in the sun easily), edible squashes. We bought a load of pumpkins from the auction to supplement until ours are ready. 

Yesterday, we had a big workday to get things done. I woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep. We had five employees coming, one for her first day of work/training. There was an equipment auction, so my parents both went to the auction to see if any of the UTVs there would be good. A working UTV would be great but aughaugh. Trying to keep five people working on all different tasks that take different amounts of time and support is really difficult. But I managed. New employee is great so far, worked fast and came and found me when she finished things. I'll have her come back one night for training more. We're actually in decent shape as far as things go. My parents did buy me 11 nice new produce boxes with false bottoms, which are excellent for displays so I guess I can't complain that much. Me and the employees got a lot done so now we need the big stuff done, which I don't know how to do yet (hayfort, canopies) so I'm bothering dad about getting that done. Hayfort got done late yesterday, canopies this coming week.

Still absolutely baffled by the number of people that will come out to the farm without checking our facebook page, website, instagram page and/or answering machine to actually check if we are open, all of which I keep updated regularly. I think a lot of people just go: oh the grocery stores have pumpkins, so everyone is open for pumpkins

I have been irrigating so much. I'm trying to get the new grass seed to germinate that we no-tilled in, so I borrowed rainbirds from my uncle. Just. so much watering. I probably spend two hours a day on irrigation. Over a month without rain here and our total rain since beginning of August is around 4 inches. Pretty dire. But we have a 70% chance of rain on tuesday, so I'm hopeful we'll get something good. I guess I need to cover all of the things I've just been leaving outside because it hasn't rained in so long. There's also a 30-40% chance of rain the rest of the week, so we probably won't get any of that, or all of it. 

On Saturday nights, Jade and I have been watching the new season of Bake Off as it is releasing with text chat and then playing stardew valley on discord voice chat afterwards. it's been so nice, I miss her a lot. We go on break in October with the farm and catch up in November. 

I sent my parents away today to a n-scale train convention out in central pa somewhere. my dad sounded so wistful about going, so I decided that he should, my mom went along for fun. my dad said as he went out the door "us leaving the farm a week before opening is a sign at how good things are going because of you" which was nice to hear since I feel like we aren't ready yet but not to an extent that I can't let him go do something fun for a day. the house is nice and quiet right now. tasks for today: move rainbirds and irrigate, harvest some things, start display setup, look at phone stuff. I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep until 6 or so when I should have gotten up so I'm sleepy and slow to start work today. ah well.