2023, animals, Family, Farming Update, Nature, pets, Theatre, Uncategorized

Crisis

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben

“Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s day-to-day living that wears you out.” – Anton Chekhov

Sometimes near the end of the day, Kelly and I hug, and sigh, and comment on the plain, old, day to day living. And then we go do something else that needs to be done for the day.

This weekend the Rochester Repertory Theater opens their 40th Season. There’s a celebration planned. Preparations for that have kept us busy for a while. Of course, there’s a committee and some people handled food, some set up lobby displays, Kelly found and organized old photos of shows and people. I mounted a TV in the lobby and some other misc things. It’s been really fun to go back through these old photos. I started at the Rep when I was 20. It was 1984. Of the four founders: Thom, Kim, and Michael had gone to college together. They brought in Jeanne, whom Michael knew, and the Rep was off and running. I came along shortly after that when I worked a show with Michael at another theater, and he invited me to help out at the Rep. Thom was one of my mentors. I learned a lot from him. Kim is the philosophical one. I learned a lot from him too.

Especially at that age! Do you remember all the stuff you did then? With the whole wide world open in front of you?? We did some crazy stuff. From the banner over Broadway, to the all night cast parties, to the floats in parades, and the acquisition of lumber. They are great memories.

We’ve all been there; young and broke and you did what you had to do to survive. It’s where I ‘courted’ Kelly. I had met her at the Rochester Civic Theater, but I got her to work on a show at the Rep. That way I knew where she’d be every night. (Another fun fact; the Rep was performing at the college that summer, in Hill Theater, where I now work. We joke we courted in the parking lot.)

But that fact we made it forty years. Wow. It wasn’t always easy, and there was talk of closing the doors a few times. Our Treasurer, Mark, had more than a few sleepless nights. It will be fun to catch up with people and visit with people we haven’t seen in 30 years. I was in some shows, as well as working backstage. When the guys gave me a key to the building, little did they know what they were getting in me. But I thought I was pretty hot stuff to get a key! I named calves after everyone. In those days before photoshop, I would make two copies and would cut out the calf photo and stick it on a photo of their theater office.

This was me in the show “Loot!”

Some of the neighbor’s cows came to visit one day. Our regular rental cows are about ready to go back home, so the guys are letting them come into the barn yard and will haul them out one of these days. So, when I saw a cow there, I wasn’t too surprised. But Kelly said it was an unusual coloring. It was an Oreo cow and I know we don’t have one of them in the pasture. Been a while since I had to chase a cow. At least it wasn’t midnight in a cornfield and chasing cows by sound. Been there done that and it’s a miserable experience. These two cows were already in the yard, so we just had to lock them in the pole barn, and call the neighbor, and he showed up with his trailer and one went in easy while the other one had to make 3 trips around the pen and scatter us a few times before she went in. I told them I didn’t miss chasing cows.

One morning as I made a sandwich for work, the bread drawer became too much even for me. I keep a supply of twist ties in there; never know when you might need one. But the crumbs, the excessive supply of twist ties (seriously, when’s the last time I used one??) and the package of tortilla shells that expired in June. Sigh. Cleaned it all out, vacuumed it, And, it made me happy. Sometimes we just hit our limit. Sometimes it’s the little things.

Picked up a stray dog for the township. She’s a sweetheart. I don’t know if we’re keeping her yet. Our existing dogs aren’t sure yet. Especially the chickens aren’t sure. No collar and haven’t found any missing dogs matching her description. I’ve told the deputies we have her. We’ll see. You’ll know if she’s still here next week.

Oh. The Farm update. A lot of neighbors are going on soybeans. Mine are still turning color and starting to lose some leaves. The rye is growing, along with the oats left in the field, (header photo) but at least it looks pretty good. The corn. It’s odd how there will be green plants right next to dried out plants. I’m not sure what’s up with that. Different maturity seed in the bag?

Fall is here. We’ll be completing the circle soon.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF FROM YOUR YOUTH?

19 thoughts on “Crisis”

  4. I’m happy with my decision to take a technical college program for practical nursing. I yearn sometimes for the degree I never completed. But I had a good career as a practical nurse.

    I’m proud of myself for pulling my guitar out from under my bed and playing music with friends. I hid my guitar for a long time. I wasn’t as “good” as others and I lacked the confidence to show them that I played too. I’m still not a good guitar player, but I built on what I knew and then I learned mandolin, which is easier for me in some ways.

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  5. I’m kind of proud of how hard I worked my first four years out in the “real world”, when I taught kindergarten at a parochial school in San Francisco. In the first job, I helped introduce a system where, instead of 40 kindergarteners showing up en masse for the whole morning, we used a staggered schedule – half of them from 8:30-11, the other half from 9:30-12. I have no idea how long this lasted after I was gone, but it sure helped while I was there.

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  7. I WAS proud of my 1963 Impala. Cherry red. It had been damaged so received a black vinyl top. Finest looking car in the high school parking lot.

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  8. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    Ben, Thanks for the Farm Report. Why did you call this crisis? I know there is a drought crisis. Is that it?

    I don’t know how to answer this question. I had many achievements as a youngster. But really the point of greatest pride is just that I endured all that my family went through without running away from home as a teen. It was so hard to watch my parents suffer like they did. Their lives were so difficult, and my mother’s behavior became impossible asa result.

    This has been a busy stretch this fall. This week I am at an art class in Jordan to add to it all. Then next weekend I can take my garden apart. The Houseplant sale yesterday was wildly successful. We had a long line at opening at 10am with people trying to sneak in before it opened. We had to bounce them out. Houseplants? Really? After two hours about 80% of the inventory was gone.

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    1. Well, crisis was the working title coming from the Chekhov quote, And I didn’t think too hard about it after that. I think I gave it a fleeting thought, but the day to day stuff got in my way and off it went. 🙂

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  9. I started a program using meditation to reduce chronic pain, supposedly with proven results. I did two of the lessons last evening which ramped up my pain quite a bit. But I will pursue it.
    I suppose I am pleased at least with all that I learned on the hard scrabble farm of my childhood.
    I admire greatly Chekhov’s writing. His plays must be hard to stage today. I have a collection of his short stories I reread. When I reduced my library to a few books, it stayed.

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    1. Way back in my early days of theater I worked on a production of ‘The Cherry Orchard’, but I don’t recall anything about it.
      Except the butlers death scene. Because he always made the most of it.

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  10. One memory from my youth that pops up from time to time, for no particular reason, is that I participated in a cleanup event at a local park when I was about 13 or 14, and there was a group picture in the local newspaper. The accompanying article talked about the importance of protecting out environment. All these years later I’m not sure what we did, exactly, but I believe we may have done some water quality tests and picked up litter.

    I’m sort of proud of my generation for caring about environmental causes in the 70’s, and continuing to insist on recycling and cleaner energy and fuel efficiency and wildlife habitat for all the decades since, even though there have always been naysayers and resistance from the political right.

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