Real Work and Business Work

I missed another day on the blog but I have no excuse. Since the weather has been, let’s say, replenishing I decided to go to my actual job on Monday. The weather in Lakeland was equally as drab as I had left in Babson Park. The reason I headed over to FSC was to handle some positive paperwork. The men’s tennis team qualified as an Academic All-American Team for the school year 2011-2012. The team’s GPA was a staggering 3.6 with 15 players on the roster. I also checked up on the new tennis facility and it is going to be awesome. The layout and styling is just second to none. While there I caught up with the women’s coach and I now know my schedule from the first week of September through the first week of October. No matter how long I do this job I don’t think I will get used to knowing what I am going to be doing so many months in advance. Once the work was done I headed towards Babson Park to do a little work at the barn but first I bought into advertising and headed to Firehouse Subs and had to try the new pulled pork/slaw/King’s Hawaiian Roll sandwich. It was good but I am still a bigger fan of the Steamer. Getting back to the barn around 5pm I actually took time to notice how green and high the grass has gotten due to the rain and the assistance of the fertilizer. There wasn’t much work to get started on so I just assisted with the evening feeding and stall mucking and then it was time for another late night dinner. It’s amazing that there was no work to really do and we still didn’t get to dinner until 8:30. This has become an odd summer but one positive is I am really getting to spend some good time with Michelle. She is working so hard to get the business side set up and I am getting to see her skills shine through. We got home around 9:30 after a great dinner of ribs from Fat Boy’s and just knocked out a load of laundry and some vegging on the couch. Tuesday brought back the normalcy of the summer which meant an early morning at the barn. I was flying solo this morning as Brianna had the first day of her horse drill team camp and Michelle and her mother were heading to the dump and then to business meetings for feed and hay suppliers. After finishing the morning chores I needed to move a large water trough from one field to the next. This in itself is not a difficult task but when I got out to the field I noticed that one of the lines had a small leak in it. No big deal except that it decided to pour off and on the entire time I was making the fix. With the leak fixed and the trough moved it was time to let a couple of the horses enjoy some of the lush grass. Today one of the luck horses was Theo. We all call him Houdini because he has the ability to push down the fence and ease his way into the neighboring grove. He only does it when he knows you aren’t paying attention so of course I gave him the look and kept a fairly close eye on him while I tended to my next task. I had to remove all the old hay out of the hay room so that we could receive our new load of 29 bales of hay. During this little exercise I also found our cat that we thought had left. He had found the hay room much more to his liking and I think he actually did his job because when I moved the mule there was a nice clump of grey and white fur. Maybe this critter will earn his keep around the property and if he does he can stay down there as long as he wants to. As soon as I got the room cleaned out Ruthie showed up with the new order and I unloaded 29 bales and stacked them one by one. I know I haven’t been in the gym but working out here is giving me a fairly good workout on a daily basis. Between rain showers/downpours I finished up the pressure washing so when it actually decides to become the Sunshine State again we can get the barns painted. Around 6pm I got the final feeding and mucking out of the way and decided to rehab one of the stalls. All was going well when it was pointed out that if I had a different tool it would probably be easier. Isn’t that the way it always is; you are doing what you think you need to do and then someone shows you it can be done more efficiently. How do you respond? My response was please get me the tool because I’ve got a lot more rehab to do. Just to wrap it up, this weather is really cracking me up. It rained, has rained, and will rain some more but the teasing with blue skies for 5 minutes is just mean. I do feel bad for those that are enduring flooding but my only complaint is that it is holding back my work. I guess our perspectives are very personal.