Contemplative Weekend

I spent much of this past weekend in a contemplative mood. Partly this was due to the weather, which quite frankly sucked. Early May in the mid-South is supposed to be glorious; it's supposed to feature lots of sunshine, warm days, brief showers, green grass and blessedly cool nights. This May has featured non-stop rain which is why I have time to type out a blog in the middle of the afternoon but really that's another topic for another day.

In between the showers I spent most of my time either fixing on farm equipment or sorting through the large collection of junky equipment that my father-in-law accumulated over his twenty year tenure on this farm. The stuff that I'll use on a regular basis is slowly making it's way to our other farm and the rest is either at the commission sales place down the road or has gone to the scrapyard. It hit me just how empty the equipment shed and yard had become yesterday morning when I went back to take a picture of the newish 8 foot Bush Hog I bought to complement our big one and the small one. This is going to sound like an odd statement, but until about a week ago if my father-in-law had magically re-appeared the place would have looked much as it did when he passed last year. Now it really doesn't. I had the same thought when I sorted through the machinery and other assorted things many years ago when my dad died, and again when I was sorting through his stuff after my ex-wife's father died. Tom and I went to our local equipment dealer many times, mostly to haul stuff home, and part of the ritual was that we stopped at a crappy Mexican food joint to have something to eat each time. I stopped at the same place on my way home from delivering the last load of his stuff and I wish I could say this too brought back fond memories but I had forgotten about the inevitable indigestion and gas that accompanied any trip to that particular Mexican restaurant. It's one tradition I won't miss at all !

Yesterday I had a Facebook message from the neighbour that rent's my old farm in Ontario. He was planting  corn and he worked at it all day and well into the night, taking full advantage of the sunshine and fine weather they are currently having. It's been long enough ago since I've planted that farm that it was almost like hearing a story about a past life as opposed to something that was occurring in real time. One thing I don't miss from farming at the northern edge of the corn belt is the mad rush to get warm season crops into the ground at the first available opportunity in order that they'll have time to mature before it freezes in the early fall.

And so passed my contemplative weekend. Carter hit the terrible two's in full stride a few weeks ago. Full stride is how he takes on most things so I had better take advantage of the few remaining minutes of quiet in my Monday to do something about the tasks on my desk ! Hope all is well with my blogger friends out there.