Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

I have been real busy lately, but productive. We have wrapped strings around about 400 tons of hay so far and we're not quite half done yet. Going to have to take the morning today to overhaul the swather. I noticed a broken frame member when we started but decided to keep going till it got worse. Well, it's worse now so it's time to fix it. Luckily I ordered a new piece and have it on hand to slip in. Then we will be going like mad again.

Like I said earlier, it's kind of fun to hay when you are getting a good crop.

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth. Pearl S. Buck

I found the following headline interesting and had to read the article.

Couples go on 'procreation vacations'

I started reading and was getting quite the chuckle out of the article.

When Lucinda Hughes heard she would have to drink sea moss elixir while vacationing in the Bahamas, she was certain it would make her sick. Sure enough, three months later, Hughes is very sick — every morning — and expecting her first baby in April. She got pregnant after she and her husband went on a three-day Procreation Vacation at a resort on Grand Bahama Island.

It's part of a trend in which hotels around the world are luring couples who are trying to have a baby. Resorts are offering on-site sex doctors, romantic advice and exotic food and drink calculated to put lovers in the mood and hasten the pitter-patter of little feet.

That is, I was chuckling until I got to this.

The couple had been trying for only two months, since their wedding in May. But like most couples they have hectic schedules in Washington, where she is a freelance writer and he is a city employee. Cell phones are always ringing, day planners are jammed. "We're all overscheduled," Hughes said.

If they are so "overscheduled" that they can't conceive a baby, how in the hell do they think they are going to raise one? Hand it off to a nanny? Children are not some kind of toy for hectic people to play with. They are a real live human being who heeds parents to love and care for them and be with them, not be so "overscheduled" that they forget about them.

People need to think ahead to the responsibility that comes with having a child. Passing that responsibility off to day care or a nanny is not how a child feels loved for or cared for. That just sends a clear signal that their parents are foisting them off and are to busy for them. What a wonderful amount of love that shows.

Maybe if you are to busy to conceive a child, you would be better off without one. Sure enough, the child is not going to benefit when you are to busy for it. That is usually called abuse.

People need to think a little further ahead than the moment. Decisions such as this affect a child for a lifetime. People talk about marriage being a lifetime commitment. Nowadays with divorce it isn't though, the real lifetime commitment is to the kids that might come from marriage. You can't, with a clear conscience, just abandon them like you do a marriage. The kids will suffer their whole lives for that, just like they will suffer for being ignored by parents that are "overscheduled."

Damn this makes me mad, sorry if I haven't made much sense, it just upsets me too much.

Child abuse and neglect offend the basic values of our state. Matt Blunt

Busy, Busy, Busy. Busy getting spring work done. It's finally getting dry enough to farm a little so I am trying to get some of that done. I might have been able to get some done earlier but everything I want to plant this year, around 200 acres, has alfalfa with it and you want to wait when planting it until the chances of frost are a little lower. Don't get me wrong, we can have frost into the first part of June but it's getting late enough now to chance it.

There are other things to do besides farming though. Tuesday we gathered up a few more pairs to take up to where the two-year olds are so we can brand "the little bunch" today.

Getting a few more pairs to take up to where the Two-year olds are at so we have enough to brand there. Taken 4/25/2006.

After we were done moving the cattle I jumped in the tractor and got some farming done. Normally I would have had the hired man do this but with him leaving there is no need to spend the time teaching him how to farm only to see him leave in a few days. Easier to do it myself and get it done. I hate sitting in the tractor farming but it needs done.

Yesterday I thought I could get a big day of farming in and finish getting the fields ready to plant. No such luck. Out checking water in the morning and a bunch of the drys are out in the wrong pasture wandering around. Everything that didn't have a calf on it when I finished kicking pairs out I put in a different pasture to sell later. Since I don't preg check there are drys in there along with stuff that has lost a calf and a very few left to calve. A bunch of these were in the wrong pasture and there was no water there so a good part of my day was shot getting them back in.

Getting the drys back in from their unauthorized excursion. It always shoots my plans to hell when critters decide to go exploring and need to be gathered back up. Taken 4/26/2006.

I still got some farming done but not what I wanted to get done. I hate it when my plans get shot. Today is the little branding. Just a couple of neighbors to help and get some branded. No big deal. I'm more worried about getting the farming done. On to that tomorrow. I will try to get a picture or two of branding today. No promises though.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing. Thomas A. Edison