Well what the hell happened between May 7 and June 23? God I wish I knew; it seems like a blur. This really has been one crazy spring; however, I seem to finally be getting my feet back under me and just wanted to start posting again with what’s going on in my world.
The intention to write new blogs is not the same as actually writing them, so as I finally sit down at my computer, I’m trying and figure out why I have not posted since May 7. The thing about blogging is that for many, myself included, I want to have something of value to share in my posts (though blogging, in its truest forms, is just sitting down and writing about what’s going on in your life for the sake of clearing your mind).
So: why no post since May 7? Well, let’s start with seeding. After a late start we had a very good run with the fields drying out very well (for the most part) from a huge winter snowpack. A large contributor to the rapid drying was the relentless wind that seemed to blow every day. This caused a lot of issues getting the pre-seed burn off done, which I will discuss shortly. Many including myself thought seeding would be very late; however, our farm completed only seven to 10 days later than usual. Then the rain started and it never seemed to stop.
Fast forward to today…
After a week or two of waiting for things to dry out, I have resigned to the fact that it is simply not going to happen and if I am going to get the crops sprayed I am just going to have to spin my way around the fields in the mud. On a typical year we do not have much issue with spraying, as we do not really need a large window to get it done, but this season the rains simply has not stopped in the past two to three weeks.
This year I took the plunge and bought a self-propelled sprayer (to be more specific, a Spray Coupe 4660). This decision resulted from the challenging windy spring we had for pre-seeding burn off. I typically unhook the 4WD from the seeder and spray for a couple days then go back out seeding; however, due to winds pretty much every day at seeding, I found myself just driving the tractor back and forth hooking and unhooking without really getting anything accomplished. I have always been hesitant to make this move, but I also knew that the sprayer really is one of the most used implements in today’s farming operations, so it was a necessary. After a month with it really wonder what I would do without it.
So let’s see – snow, wind, rain… yep, that pretty much takes me from May 7 to June 23. In fact, today really felt like the first warm day we have had. It has been a very cloudy, cold, somewhat depressing spring this year and, as a result, the everyday jobs have seemed to drag on seemingly forever.
That’s pretty much the story of the farm in the past month. As a full time farmer and full time REALTOR / Brokerage owner, however, I really am never left wondering how to fill up my day when the weather turns wet. This spring has also seen its challenges in my real estate life. It seems as though the real estate season was also about two weeks behind this spring. Typically sales and listings really bulk up starting at in mid-April until mid-June; however, this spring we did not see a flood of listings until about three weeks ago. Sales were also slower than usual until the first of June, then sales took a drastic spike and have been on a run ever since. I can’t speak for any of the others in my market but, for Kim and me, we have been run off our feet. In the past three to four weeks our sales numbers are through the roof and have more than made up for the slow start. Again, probably explaining why this is my first post since May!
Well, that covers what’s been going on with my work life. Outside of that my cycling season so far has been a disaster that I would rather not talk about. The combination of crappy weather and poor race timing has resulted in my season going from a goal of four events down to two, and this really does make me grumpy. Cycling helps me handle the stress of the chaos that I call my life; it is the sanctuary where I clear my head, and races are how I feed my competitive spirit. I really look forward to these events all year for both competition and companionship with teammates and other cyclists. I feel like my overall fitness this year is strong, but all of the random events on the farm and real estate have conspired against me, resulting in disappointing season. I am really hoping that I have a good 24 hours of adrenalin in Canmore to make up for the rest of the disappointment.
I am hoping that the rest of my summer and fall go more smoothly than the past two months, as it really has felt like an uphill battle. I guess that that’s the thing about my life; I try to keep in perspective that with so many variables in my mix, I truly can’t expect everything to go as planned very often. This blog is a fun sideline to document my life, and when I am too busy to write, it just means I am busy living!
