Work has been keeping me busy. I saw your reply, but only now taking a minute to comment.
I read a lot without logging in. Don’t always remember to go back and mark them or comment.
Ha! I didn’t expect to see you write that. I just figured everyone here loves growing.
I can appreciate flowers and nice spaces, same goes for a forest or desert. I just think a vegetable garden, or any garden, is a lot of work for little gain.
I do it for my wife. I enjoy making her happy. Helps make up for the crap she puts up with I hope.
Growing weeds more about saving money and tackling a new challenge.
I’m familiar with the child labor. When I was a kid, until age 12, we lived in a trailer court. Well, they called it that, but it was really more like a small farm. The owner had a big old two story farmhouse and we were in one of three trailers on lots he rented out. The lots were large and bordered on a neatly mowed field where area kids would gather to play football, baseball, frisbee, fly kites, etc. We were surrounded by woods and a creek. If we weren’t in school or doing chores, we pretty much lived like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Kids running wild and unsupervised until it got dark. It was a wonderful time and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Yep. My uncles grew up on their fathers farm. Most became accountants, lawyer and a realtor. They no longer liked that type of labour so they would get me with my moms blessings.
We had the back lanes and nature trails. So dirt lots and ravines that I could play army or just hide in a fort in the trees reading until school was over. Dark wasn’t an issue. No one tried to take older kids or younger teens. We all jump the guy or run away taunting. Different times, mostly good.
The owner was a super nice man. His grandson is my best friend to this day. He had this little Sears tractor that he did a ton of work with. Including, tilling a massive vegetable garden. His family and the families in the trailers all worked the garden and shared the harvest. Us kids picked tons of rock and did most of the weeding. I think weeding will wear anyone down. And I absolutely hated snapping green beans to can.
I’d forgotten about string beans and skinning buckets of corn. Hated the potato/carrot peeler too.
Paper grocery bag after paper grocery bag full of beans to snap. Felt more like 60 hours in a day to me when that shit was going on. Still, even as a kid, I got that sense of satisfaction you get from finishing whatever work, looking back and seeing something I’d accomplished. As much as snapping beans sucked, I sure did enjoy the fruits of my labor. You can’t buy beans that good in a grocery store.
I used to dropped off at houses my one uncle knew. Picking pears, peaches, different types of apples. Long work but I’d get a basket usually.
I enjoyed building things though. Sheds, garages, cottages. That was interesting and you got to use the tools.
My parents bought a house a little ways up the road when I was 12. As I grew into being able to do more man-sized work, things got a bit more interesting. I mowed yards and when I was 13 got work in a nearby butcher shop scraping fat off the floor and scrubbing and bleaching equipment, burning trash, and whatever odd job they had for me.
Different jobs, same idea.
This lead to buying my own car (absolutely horrid powder blue Pinto that I loved for the freedom it gave me) and I’ve always paid my own auto insurance. My parents had the means to pay, but I hated school and my grades showed it, even though I was capable of doing well.
Mom’s boyfriend had a green pinto. I bought my dads old brown Capri 302. (Mustang with a hatchback.) I had to save for insurance. Mom had nothing and dad didn’t pay support.
I’ve always hated authority figures and being told what to do. I just had a bad attitude and no teacher or principal was going to tell me what to do. My parents, rightly so, weren’t going to reward me for that.
No comment.
No rewards either.
When I wasn’t working for pay, dad made sure I knew what a blister was. I was very familiar with a brush axe and posthole diggers.
Yep. It was just discipline back then. Chopping wood, digging holes, painting buildings. I still use clam shovels and a farm/kick Jack to pull out old posts.
None of this was special. Most of the kids I grew up with had similar experiences and we’d even help each other knock jobs out so we could go do something we wanted.
Yep, pool hall, beach, swimming, hang out somewhere. We would occasionally help each other with yard work or the like.
Even with doing work when I wanted to be fishing or every teens’ favorite pastime of getting drunk and high, those were great years in my life. Learning how to work in general and learning basic plumbing, carpentry, electrical skills, etc., all made me self-reliant. It’s just nice being able to take care of your own stuff without having to hire someone.
Agreed, but it starts to pile up these days and finding places to buy parts or service items has become challenging. Covid killed a lot of my secret tucked away shops.
I’ve had some dark patches as an adult and have gotten behind on things here and there. I’m still some catching up on some stuff. I prefer to relax and have fun.
Yep again. Unfortunately I’ve been fighting a battle it two that I can’t let go of. Winning, finally, but cost in time and effort I’ll never get back. Ruined my faith or trust in most people and all government.
Most of the work I do at home has the end goal of setting up things so I have less work to do in the future. In my paying job, I take pride in my work. I still struggle with authority. Hell, in the Air Force I would cross the street to avoid saluting certain officers. I can respect someone having direction over me at work when they are good at their job. If you’re an idiot and giving bad direction, one of two things is going to happen: For a new guy coming in trying to rewrite the book with a bad idea many before you have tried and failed, I’m going to do exactly what you asked for and you will not like the results. For the second action, you have to be very good at your job. If someone is just a true asshole that didn’t learn anything at step one, everything is going to go to shit and nobody will be able to figure out why. I’ve had a few situations like this, but the old-timers I learned from (on a previous job) were the real masters.
I quit school in grade 10. Took a year off to figure out what I wanted to do. Was told by my mom if I was at school it was rent free, otherwise it wasn’t. One pay check a month was the cost.
Tbc
. Since flipping to flower they've had two rounds each of Terp Tea Bloom and Uprising Bloom, both from Roots Organics. I need to research tips on taking photos under HPS bulbs. To me, they look a little better in person.
