#203. or, Adversity (not the most upbeat post)

  I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

  I have no frickin clue, what I'm doing.

  Day to day, in this job that I do.

  Sure, I know what needs to be done, and I'm reasonably good at coordinating those "things that need to be done," with general times of the year. But there are times when I feel woefully inadequate in my ability to steer this ship.

  Now is one of those times.

  I'm just going to put myself out on a limb here and say it, Mother Nature is a bit of a bitch. Particularly this fall, no scratch that, this whole past spring, summer, and fall. From making decisions on planting crops in what was looking to be the driest year ever, to trying to make hay and harvest in what has become a fall so wet that even the old boys having morning coffee at the CO-OP don't have relatable tales of days gone by.

  I am pretty sure, that I hold the dubious distinction of being the only farmer in the whole damned Province that hasn't harvested a single bushel of crop.

  Nothing

  Zero

  Nadda

  Zilch!

  To put that into perspective, lets just say that you have a 9 to 5 sorta job. Bills to pay, standard of living to maintain, insurances, life sorta stuff. But you get paid seasonally, so you work all year to fulfill those obligations, and it turns out, you don't get paid. Yet, all those things that cost money remain. If that doesn't twist your guts and make your morning bowel movements unpleasant, you're even more laid back than I am.

  Honestly, I don't know if my decisions were bad. I did get all my hay up, so that's a positive. But I don't know if pursuing that instead of harvesting dry grain for 3 or 4 days in the end of September was the right decision or not. I don't know if choosing not to attempt to tow my combine through the mud to take off grain that's 6 points above dry and probably won't keep until I can market, or get it dried, is the right choice either.

  I just want it all to be done, but I haven't even begun.

  I'm not the driven person my father was. I try to be patient and wait things out, and as a rule, that's generally served me well. I don't have the ulcers or take the daily heart or blood pressure medication that he took. But right now, I think I'd trade some of that to have something in the bin.

  This post was supposed to start gloomy and I was going to try to take it into a more positive place. But, here I am nearing the end of it, and it all went pretty much in one direction.

  Perhaps, I'll have to write a follow up post where I try to find some positives. Which isn't a bad thing on multiple levels. And maybe, given enough time, I'll actually get to start my harvest.

 Or, maybe not.

  ................I think I'll just combine twice next year.