This weeks “Farming Update?” from Ben

I got a massage the other day and the salt wall in the header photo is the wall of their waiting room. It has a nice amber light that is very calming, and they say it supports relaxation to help reduce stress. I just like the look of it.  Daughter has a salt lamp that is the same color. It sweats due to the higher humidity in our house, and kinda makes a mess, but it is a very nice warm light.

It’s been kind of a busy week. 

There was no farming this week, unless you call cutting the grass and picking up sticks and feeding the chickens and collecting eggs farming. And that was done by Kelly and daughter respectively. I got diddly squat done at home between Work work, tech rehearsals for Sweeny Todd, several meetings, homework, and yes, the massage. That’s how I spent the week. Well, at least until I got to Friday. I got a few things done Friday.

I must say, I am acing the humanities class. 100%. And this comment from the teacher: “You know you’re going above and beyond, right? I mean that you’re writing 2-3x as much as your classmates… but you’re probably also having 2-3x as much fun!”  I wrote to her and said I knew I was writing too much and I felt sorry every time I submitted a paper to her. She responded, ” No, it’s fine. Write away! At least I can hear YOUR voice in your writing and it’s both personal and wise. Plus, you really enjoy doing it.”

That made my whole day… 

Music class… eh. 8/10 on a workbook and that’s the only grade posted so far. I go see the teacher weekly and we have a good time talking. It always makes so much sense when she tells me. It doesn’t sink in from the book. Course it would help if I actually read the book first and didn’t just jump into the middle. I can “wing” a lot of things, but evidently not this so much. Geez, sounds like high school all over again. 

At college one day I made an electric cable. You know, lighting fixtures used to come with a cord, and you just put on the end you needed. It might be either of a couple specific theater kinds of ends like, ‘Stage Pin’ or ‘Twist Loc’ (new or old style) or regular old Edison like at your house.

Then they, “They”, stopped putting cables on the light. You get a ‘receptacle’ on the back of the light fixture, and you hook up a power cable. They were ‘powercon’. So, I made powercon cables and adapters and couplers, because you couldn’t simply hook one end to the other. And from powercon, now they created ‘True 1’ connectors. “New and Improved!” Here I am making MORE cables. But at least this connector can hook end to end without a special coupler. 

A few years ago I learned if you read the printing on the cable, the female connector will go on the right hand side, because the woman is always right, and that way you don’t need to twist the wires to connect to the proper terminal. HUH! 

Sweeny Todd opened last night, Friday, at the Rep in Rochester. I’d seen the show once before, never saw the movie. I know the plot, but I didn’t know the show that well. This version, this director, Philip, really brings out the humor in the show. There’s a lot of sarcasm. Sweeny goes off on this big song of bringing vengeance on all those that have ruined his life, and Mrs. Lovett sits for a moment and finally says, “Well yes, that’s all well and good…” 

Lighting it has been fun. We ended up with 206 lighting cues. A handful of those are before the house opens; turning on house lights, checking all the fixtures are working, etcetera, but the bulk are during the show, when Emilie, our stage manager, is also triggering 200 sound cues. It’s OK, she has 2 fingers; one for sound, one for lights. We don’t have an orchestra for this show, we have recorded music. (Musicians are busy, and it’s often hard to find enough to cover the run of a show. If they’re in a band, they’re usually playing weekends as well). Emilie is busy! And she does a fantastic job. 

Here’s some looks from the show. 

There was an auction again. See how this newer tractor sold for so much less? It has a lot more hours, and it needs tires. Looks like its been ‘rode hard and put away wet’. Tires will be about $20,000 for all 8 of them.

The top tractor only has 5000 hours. The bottom one has 11,000 hours.

I didn’t buy anything. I watched a few things, didn’t buy any. 

HOW MANY KINDS OF SALT IN YOUR CABINET?

DOESN’T EVERYONE HAVE A WATER SOFTENER?