What I'm Listening to: Beautiful by Eminem

It’s raining today. Of course right after we cut hay down. We spent seven hours fixing the mower conditioner the other day and $400 in parts and the cutter bar broke again on the last round. Dad got quiet down about it. It’s frustrating when you can’t fix something. We’ve got 108 bales up so far and lots of wet hay in the field.

I’m rereading Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series. It’s interesting having that on my mind while farming. I’m sure that was never in the author’s imagination when the books were published. :-)

My honey is still injured and looking at surgery. It’ll be a long time, if ever, before he is right again.
The second batch of chicks is growing like crazy. They consume so much feed it’s unbelievable. They have full-run of the chicken coop now and have started going all the way to the top rung of the roost. They’re growing up so fast.

The garden is coming up good. Most the tomato plants have made it, to our increasing surprise. For some reason, none of my cucs have come up and only one summer squash has poked its head up. But the herb garden on the hot tub looks great. It just needs to go in the ground. One of these days we will decide where the permanent, or semi-permanent, herb garden will go.

Gram and I did strawberry jam together yesterday. It was actually really fun. She just washed up things and got the jars ready while I did most of the work with the strawberries. Dad told me while I was growing up that time with grandparents is precious and once they’re gone, you never get it back. I regret not listening to him earlier and try to make up for it with Gram. She enjoys the time we spend together and I realize now how important it is.

Movie recommendation for the day: Warrior Queen with Alex Kingston. It’s a Masterpiece Theater film and very well-made, as Masterpiece Theater’s tend to be. It’s uplifting and sad all at once. Or maybe it’s just the Celt in me that thinks so. There’s a line in it that actually comes out of the Celtic ideas about life and death. See if you can spot it.