Learning what I already knew

3/13/10 Saturday
It’s been busy since the bad slowdown I had Thursday. I pretty much lost a whole day with that one. Alan came out to work yesterday. We’re paying him and the other guy out of Cherie’s paycheck and that puts us in a bind but I desperately need the help. Alan and I got a lot done and as usual I’m paying the price in my body for that. Alan was hurting by the end of the day as well. 14 years in prison without doing a lot of physical work takes a toll on you, but he stuck with it and me all day and I greatly appreciate it.

We prepared these beds to plant the onion sets I bought last week in. The guys had started on them back when the wind storm showed up and blew most of their work away. First on the agenda yesterday was repairing and replacing the drip irrigation system. In the process of working on the beds I got mixed up. Originally the plan was to mix in compost and the Mittleider method pre plant mix of gypsum, Epsom salts, and Borax that I’m adopting. But as we progressed I forgot all about it and when I realized that I told Alan “Any job worth doing is worth doing right” and we then backtracked, removed the drip tape, and started over. Like I’ve mentioned before, every year I must relearn what I learned the year before, and it can be frustrating to repeat old mistakes. But we got it done. Today I plan on planting the onions.


They put the drilling rig up across the highway yesterday. I knew it was coming soon. It’s a different kind of rig from the others I’ve seen, presumably a more modern one. It is certainly quieter than some of the others that have set up near here and that’s good because this is the closest one yet, only fifty yards or so away from our property line.

Alan just called. He was at the bank and I forgot to sign his paycheck. Nuts. He is going to check and see if I signed Mike’s check too and run out here so I can correct this moment of vacancy.

All the responses I’ve gotten on the truck and trailer so far are from idiots. Seems that you can make money by getting people to click on links so these dips are replying with statements like “Why are you selling so cheap?”, or “is it still for sale?” and when I reply I get a response designed to entice me to click a link. You know, it’s discouraging to see how much deceit is out there now. I was always an easy mark, someone who trusted or believed what others told me. Alan is the same way and has been taken for over a hundred grand in addition to being sold a piece of crap car recently. Now I’m learning that someone who had deigned to be helping us is instead trying to take advantage of us and possibly screw us out of a lot of money. So who can I trust? They smile and tell me how they care but inside they seek to take advantage of us. I was just reading in Job chapter 24 to 27 and see that things haven’t changed much in several thousand years. And Jesus warned us as well, many times, telling that in the last days there will be wolves in sheep’s clothing seeking to devour and take advantage of the weak.

Alan and I went and got a load of telephone poles yesterday. Fortunately they had forgotten to unload the chain saw when we went to Odessa because the poles were too long for the trailer. I cut them in half and that made it manageable. We can get a bunch more and they will be invaluable as with them I can build barns and many other structures as we carve this farm out of the desert.

There’s work to do, always, so I’ve got to go. The pain level is up there but fortunately I have the medication that makes it bearable.