It is a mystery

Holidays were very good

• hung out with family and their dogs
• we did a puzzle that friend of a friend of my SIL made of their painting - it was very good and difficult
• had friends visit on their way south, they brought their dogs
• played a random series of games - exploding kittens, oh hell (family fav), some kind of game about guessing on a scale, ransom notes, some kind of imposter game. most party games aren't to my taste, but I did like exploding kittens
• new years day family party which was nice
• I pulled all my stash out organized it and it is mostly put away
• I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and they were so good
• I made tacos for the friends that stopped by and it was good 
• went for many walks - christmas day with the cousins, twice with sibs and the dogs, friends around the farm
• I brought some furniture, my CPW and the two extra boxes of yarn stash that I didn't know I had from the shed and am now more optimized for crafting and can watch tv on the big screen while I do it
• finished upstairs bathroom floor - drywall next
• started journaling my feelings in a little physical notebook
• made a dr appointment for next week
• my brother bought me anno 1800 - time sink it's very good if confusing
• my brother and SIL came overnight because they realized their ski lesson place was closer to here and so brought their dogs for two days and I got to hang out with the dogs which was very good

today, I spread two loads of straw - person spreading counts as the one putting the bales in the shredder, not the driver. driver has easy job. we go 1.5mph and a bale goes 50 ft or so. the cart behind the shredder holds 50 bales or so. I'll try and have my mom get a video, it's very fun and decently difficult farm task. then I finishing sanding my parents office at their house. I was supposed to run for groceries and supplies from hardware store but after straw and sanding I am tired and don't want to. Might do that and baking tomorrow. 

I am attempting to motivate my parents on their renovation by just simply doing parts of it for them. this is working okay so far. I need to pick up a spackle bucket. not a bucket of spackle but something for holding the spackle because my dad used it for floor patch in the rental and it apparently because extremely solid in the container. spackling and sanding is next for them and as soon as I get my drywall pieces up in the upstairs bathroom, I will be spackling and sanding. 

In theory my parents are moving their bedroom over this week, the reality is that my dad went to urgent care today to get something with his jaw looked at. I have been working with an attorney on business stuff. there's a lot going on and I'm very tired right this minute so I might get my heated blanket and take a nap in my comfy chair and then crafting tonight, can't wait for more crafting

my parents are Making Progress

thank all the gods

it does help that the farm is basically asleep and I am working on those things but really only get 4-6 hours of work done each day on outdoor tasks, so everything is taking a lot of days there. so now all my dad's free time is on house stuff plus he absolutely loves deadlines to work to and my mom is only stressing about moving instead of about everything including the farm. 

so yesterday before I hit the road, I helped my mom load and move three large bins and two small boxes over to the fun house and she thanked me so much for helping and how it was so difficult and she couldn't have done it without me!!!!

in my mind I am thinking "dear god moving isn't this difficult, it truly isn't that hard, this was so little stuff and so easy" but I am trying to remind myself that I have moved six times in eleven years and I have practice moving. They moved twice in 33 years. Wildly different experiences. It is a skill that needs to be developed. My mom is very good at losing her mind about things. She also is pretty clearly procrastinating on actual important moving tasks by having me help her with other stuff (we forked two cabinets from the front porch where they have sat in their boxes for literal years, which they may actually set up for use in the garage) or suggesting I fix unimportant things (the upstairs hallway light doesn't have a fixture and she wanted me to work on it). I am going to have to kick her out when it comes time to actually set the house up for guests because our ideas of housekeeping are very very different and I will lose my mind if she comes over here to clean more before guests come over. The front porch is an example, she wanted to start cleaning the front porch off because the cardboard boxes look terrible but I won't be able to host guests at all if the fucking guest bedrooms aren't empty of their stuff. We come into the house via the back porch, the front porch steps don't even work. PRIORITIES

I just got back after 24 hours away (drove to MD for continuing education credits for sidejob) and my dad has almost fully emptied his work desk of things, plus the giant shelf next to his work desk (they are leaving me the giant shelf, I am SO EXCITED about it for crafting supplies, it is HUGE. It is floor to ceiling, four feet wide, 2 or 2 1/2 feet deep with four shelves. It will be the perfect shelf for roving and fleeces). Now it's all piled on the couch, but it has been sorted at least. 

The order of operations currently is: finish laying new flooring in the rental (currently around half done), do all other repairs in rental (new renter is moving in Jan 1st), then sand and finish flooring in fun house office so all office supplies can be moved directly in (due to computer/server/network things I know nothing about, it is easier to move offices only once), their bedroom moves to fun house, (once those two rooms are emptied, I can move a bunch of my stuff from shed to here, and set up guest bedrooms for christmas and I can start cleaning and organizing the house to my liking), they move either to the fun house or to the rental temporarily, I don't really care which, they do the rest of the flooring in the fun house and all the other renovation things. They may have to move back into the guest bedroom here temporarily while they seal and finish the hallway floor but if we get to that point, it will be a minor miracle. They would also still be using the kitchen here to cook. I just suggested to my mom that she use the church which would be closer but she didn't seem thrilled. Can't imagine why. 

The couch will remain until after christmas which is fine by me, it's a very nice and comfortable couch, so I don't mind borrowing it. I will probably rearrange things so we have more space and can fit things. I did send around the christmas gift list but my asks were help moving things after christmas day and not much in the way of physical gifts because I need help with tasks, not stuff. 

I did get the indoor woodstove working, I did not clean the chimney out, I got up there and started the attempt and gave up but! the actual up/down part of the chimney was mostly smoke and the pipes to the stove were full of creosote, so I cleaned the pipes and top of the stove out, plus the basement cleanout and started that bad boy up. it's so so so nice to have the woodstove to warm up next to after working outside, I warm up so much faster. 

anyway, so many parentheses and I'm very tired after my drive home, thank you to the moon for being so bright for the drive.

yesterday I took another day off work, made pumpkin pie, granola, cheesy puff pastry thingies and went and got my covid and flu shots. no big deal, my day off! and then I got a hell of a nasty period all at once, the first in several months. then at 1:30am I was woken up by very bright headlights shining in my second story bedroom window and car door slams. I went to investigate in the cold, just someone broken down who's ride got there already and they left pretty quickly. I took aleve at this point because my shoulder was very sore despite my best efforts and I was pretty nauseous and extremely thirsty.

didn't get back to sleep for a bit. 

I did sleep in a bit to make up for the middle of the night interruption, so I wasn't super tired for most of the day, got some farm work done but now I'm very sleepy all of a sudden and heading to bed as soon as I finish eating my pie. I'm hoping I can fall asleep fast, we're getting a heck of a windstorm and maybe some rain, but we battened down the hatches and actually took one canopy fully down this afternoon. pie could be better tasting, I usually like a little more spices for flavor but it's tasty enough.

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

jeez I'm tired. naps required for today. the weekend wasn't record breaking but it was pretty close. there was some minor crises as normal like the wind. 30 mph winds, so dad and I spent some time battening down the canopies. pretty sure they all survived the night as well. the wind made our power flicker so all the registers went down, plus the card readers. came back up quick so I was able to reboot the computers and have them run cash while the internet came back enough to use the card readers. 

saturday had 10 outings which went mostly smoothly, the first set ran late but it was fine in the end. not sure if people are not reading emails or what. 

it's raining right now which is nice for a break. late last week I posted on facebook that we had extra tiny pumpkins and we'd offer a discount if people bought 20 or more and uhhh, people went wild for it. I couldn't believe how many people have contacted us about them. we are almost out actually. another day or so of pumpkin picking this week, primarily to scavenge enough smalls for our daytime group outings

I have rediscovered KEXP which was recommended by B ages ago and their youtube page, so I've been listening to their in-studio performances while playing some video games this morning. also late to this party but Shaboozey has some delightful country anthems especially his last album. that seems to be his whole jam that I've heard so far but they're very enjoyable

office work and planning in a bit and then some prep work for the week, then crafting tonight. I'm going to lay around on the couch a bunch and work on my laptop in between video game playing. 

I really should not be living and working with my parents and specifically my mother, she drives me bonkers. She struggles with prioritization and worries about the tiniest stuff. She is currently so cranky about the tshirt order who are running late for the first time in many years and she's ready to throw them out as a supplier. so much taking things personally! I am very tired right now and she is asking me how many honeys to order. I dont' know how many honeys we sell in a year, this is my first full year here. she has so much knowledge about stuff but dear god. it's so much to manage her. 

The weekend went well, we were pretty prepared for things. Saturday was busier than Sunday, both days were sunny and very hot. We hit 80F on Sunday. bleh. sweating, so much sweating. I hydrated with apple cider and a little water. too much apple cider, my stomach is extremely upset right now. I also didn't eat much, but I wasn't hungry, a combo of too hot and lots to do which was an absolutely huge mistake. the first weekend is practice for busier weekends and working out the problems. I need to pack a lunch, so even if I take a bite every ten minutes, I'll get through a whole sandwich. 

morning list: hiking boots (to swap to when ground dries out), lunch, water bottle x2, cash drawers, hoodie, blanket

the harvest has to start today, so I'm planning to do a half day of harvesting this afternoon and then relax some more. We got some stuff harvested yesterday morning real quick to fill out empty displays, but there's lots of pumpkins out there. we are starting daytime outings this week too. busy busy busy. 

other reasons I need my parents to move out: my dad is on a computer call, so I have to take farm calls in the other room away from my computer. separate offices needed. ETA: I moved to the kitchen, they have followed me to keep talking to me! Double ETA: I went over to my shed for an hour and my mom came over to have a lot of feelings at me about baked goods, when I told her I went there for peace and quiet and she could have called me. then 45 minutes later, she needed to talk about something, she called me and when I didn't get back to her in one minute (I saw the phone call as I was calling my dad about the bad dehumidifier in the church that was leaking water everywhere), she tracked me down in the church. jesus fuck. to be fair, I'm hungry and therefore cranky but also wtf

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.

1. My siblings came to visit in this weekend, which was a delight. I still had work and employees around but I stopped working as soon as they were done for the day and started the campfire in the backyard. There was much delicious food, chatting and my mom gave me some fleece as a birthday gift. Gorgeous fleece from Clemes and Clemes, looking forward to working with it. My brother brought his dogs, so I got dog snuggle times and much general amusement because his dogs are so weird and funny

2. My mom still hasn't apologized for using my strainer but she offered to pay for the new one, so that's solid

3. Between me and the employees, we got all of the old plastic mulch out of the field that has been lingering there for years, my dad didn't want to just pull it up by hand the year we tried it and then he kept putting off removing it. We've got strawberries going in that field next year, so it had to get up. 

4. I was going to run to town today and get groceries and pick up more fertilizer for the strawberries, but it's a holiday and probably no one is open. Oh no, I'll just need to stay home and enjoy my day off work and bake things :)

5. The weather has been SO NICE. I can't believe we got weeks of nice weather in August and so far predicted into Sept. Hoodies and blankets and not that much sweating while working. It's incredible. I've been irrigating because it's dry but nothing like beautiful temps in the upper 60s, low 70s to make me appreciate it after how hot and muggy most of the summer was. 

I had a lovely weekend. 

saturday morning, we got the plastic on the tunnel. I had been working on this on and off over the past two weeks. It was half of a high tunnel that we had tried to use to help along the blackberries but it didn't really succeed. We took half of it away (apparently I never posted about this and it is a very funny thing we tried and failed at but it was fun) and left the other half where it was without plastic. The blackberries are not a success. It's a combination of things: wrong varieties, wrong location, lack of attention, disease issues. So I mowed them all down this year and the tunnel is now more storage, especially for wagons because we can pull them through. It was hot and sticky that morning, but we got the plastic on and almost all secured by 10am after starting at 8 and I ran off. Tossed all my stuff in the truck and hit the road. 

I took the trip slowly, because I have been driving on my spare (it's a proper tire, just old) and the check engine light had been on for low oil (I added more oil and it turned off). I made my way up to C's place, where I picked up 15 lbs of garlic and left money and cornmeal shortbread cookies. They were away on a camping trip, so I missed seeing them but it was lovely to see the area again and look at some of their farm projects. I got ice cream. Then headed to B's, stopping to pick up arepas on the way. I arrived around 6pm, we nommed food and sat around and chatted, then set up my tent and popped all my stuff in it. Then sleep time. Well. Reading a book, then sleeping

I didn't sleep particularly well, there was some amount of critters poking around and at the tent and a door on B's cabin slammed at 12:30am for some reason, but it was fine. I slept in a bit and wandered out around 8am. We ate breakfast and then wandered back out to the cabin. Did some crafting, chatting which was lovely and relaxing. I read a book for a bit. B worked on painting some outlet covers. When we went in for lunch, A asked if we could run for canned beans, which were needed for refried beans for dinner, so B and I went to the grocery store first, picked up beans, snacks and split an extremely good lunch of guacamole, chips and spicy california rolls (I had been complaining about the lack of guacamole available in the grocery stores by me). Then we stopped by an ice cream place. This was about the time some clouds rolled in, taking the temps from 90F with so much humidity to not blazing hot and just merely uncomfortable. 

More crafting, reading and relaxing in the afternoon. knitting for me, painting for B. Just the nicest to be able to do that with a friend. B is a delight and it was so great to see her in person for the first time in six months and just get to hang out either chatting or crafting. I love some chill time with friends. I think it's interesting how the way I spend time with her is very like how I spent time with former roommate J who I still miss living with three years after we parted ways. Lots of quiet relaxing time together, watching things, chatting, occasional outings places. Hmm. I took a 20 min nap, which helped a lot with the sleep deprivation but since I napped in my tent without a fan, I woke up damp with sweat which was gross. But some time hanging out in the cabin in front of the fan fixed that and a fresh tshirt before dinner also helped. 

Dinner made by A was absolutely delicious tacos with fixings and the wind picked up around 5:30 and dropped the outside temperature 20 degrees in about an hour. It felt cold, but super nice so we sat outside to eat. Z had friends visiting, so there was chatting with total strangers but it was good fun anyway. they all went for ice cream while B and I headed back to the cabin. she worked on her novel and looked at art and I read a book until sleep time. I slept fantastic that night, it got down to 50F and was so cold and nice. I had a sleeping bag and blanket and woke up much refreshed. We ate breakfast, then I packed up while B started work. She loaded me up with eggs and I refreshed my delicious meats supply. 

Then I headed to my old house with a brief pit stop to fill my tire (the spare on). I had left some wood, some misc supplies and a bunch of pieces of fencing there and never managed to make the trip. That morning, I remembered why I had originally planned to bring the big farm truck: most of the wood was 12 feet long and would only hang 2ft off the bed of the big truck. but my truck, it would hang 4.5ft off the back. So I scrapped taking the wood. I offered it to B or if F wanted to offer it to any of her relatives, they could have it. Otherwise, when I come up in November, I'll bring a circular saw and chop the wood to fit in my truck bed and take it with me. It is on the wood rack I build, so I'm not too worried about it being in the way. As far as I can tell, F has not touched a single thing in the shed since I left. I got all the wire fencing rolled up, figuring out an efficent way to do it, then chatted with F about the goings-on. So pleased with myself, I strapped down my load and left, only realizing I left my multitool in the driveway 20 mins into my trip. I turned around and went back for it. I should probably get a second one in case something like this happens again. 

But that turnaround cost me the time I had allotted to stopping by the co-op to pick up baking supplies I'd been having trouble sourcing, so I just hit the road. I stopped for gas, snacks and a quick load check and then drove home. I arrived in good time, right around 4:30pm which left me enough time to put away a few things, lay down and read a book before crafting. 

I feel so good today that between the fantastic weather (only 77F today!!!) and my time away, I accidently worked from 7am to 8pm and am not particularly tired. I won't continue that, but man, getting away was great and to spend time with a friend was also great. Goals for next year: I get away from the farm once in June or July and once in August

I am making cookies to take with me on my weekend off as gifts for everyone. they are extremely easy and delicious cornmeal cookies made in the food processor. I am procrastinating it. still sitting here on my computer. it's wild how tired I am right now, the weather has been hot (80-85F) but 65% humidity. I have sweated so much but it doesn't help cool off. no breeze. I would rather it be hotter so I have an excuse to skive off work and go to the creek. instead. I must work and sweat and sweat and sweat. I also drove a fence post into a ground bee nest yesterday and got stung twice, which didn't swell up yesterday but is itchy and slightly swollen today, one on the back of my hand. we are putting plastic on a high tunnel tomorrow morning before I leave. I'm a little concerned about my truck tire that I put on, but the spare looks okay and it's been okay driving around here on the farm but we'll see

to do: 
make cookies
while cookies are chilling, throw laundry in washer and start packing
clean out back of truck
bake cookies
dip some cookies in melted chocolate
put spare tire back on truck

important stuff to bring on trip that isn't obvious
money for seed garlic
tent
camping chair
sleeping bag
crafting project
books
cooler - large (borrow one?) to bring back things from the co-op

a vague grumbly theory that has been forming about my bleh feelings of the living situation is my hobbies. I like being efficient about my hobbies. this is not for everyone. but I like being good at them and being efficient with my time spent on them and finishing projects. living with my parents means that none of my hobbies are efficient. all of my baking supplies are in the pantry, far from the counters and not efficiently stacked for ease of pulling them out. so getting out all of my baking supplies and digging out appliances and getting the pans I need takes up way more time than it used to, even in the apartment where half of my baking supplies were in the living room closet. repeat this for weaving and spinning and sewing. current sewing issue is the lack of surface space. in order to have a surface large enough to lay out a person size piece of fabric to sew it to another piece, I unfold a small plastic table in the hallway upstairs and use that for sewing on. my mom's iron is broken and I never actually owned one myself. 

okay, enough whinging, onward to baking. oh duh, I just ate a huge meal, it's making me sleepy, that's probably why I don't want to get up.