July 2024 – The Farmer's Blogger

Hello friends!

How are we doing? We are absolutely covered in wildfire smoke here, although I’m grateful, we are not in immediate danger from the current fires, so I can deal with some smoke. The air quality has basically halted all work outside for the foreseeable future. We are also under wildfire warnings for PSPS, that is Public Safety Power Shutoffs, so if you have tips, send them my way. A little nervous to be wfh with the chance of most of the valley losing power randomly. In fact, as I write this, I am waiting to see if they are cutting us off this evening, and if I’ll even be able to get this posted. We have a storm coming in, and everyone is sorta expecting carnage.

It’s very weird to be essentially fogged in, as though it’s winter time, but for it to also be 107 degrees. We’ve had heat and air quality warnings that have been extended long enough I am totally blind to the warnings panel on my weather app. Just trying to keep everything moist and limit activity for all the creatures on the farm, two and four legged. The worst I’ve seen so far on the air quality scale is 237, but I know it’s so much worse closer to the fires.

We had to give up on the garden this year. The potatoes we planted got dug up and eaten by some critters that needed sustenance, and with the rest of it, we just decided it wasn’t quite going to work this year. Gives us time to prepare for a better attempt next year I guess. And with the smoke, probably better to keep outdoor hobbies to a minimum. I’m kinda considering raised beds too, so I can put covers on things, but that might be overkill.

I had a birthday last week. I’m 28 now, which really doesn’t feel any different than 27 or 26, although I’d argue If you compared 25 and this upcoming year, you’d probably notice the differences. Change is gradual and easy to miss, but I’d like to think I’m slowly getting better at this living thing. I had a lovely calm birthday, took a few days of paid leave and finally got a few moments to destress. I’ve basically worked everyday since June 26th, some days less than others, some long enough that they bled together, and it was a welcome change to mute all work based notifications for a bit. But boy, that productivity guilt hit hard the first day or so. I’ve gotten to catch up on some things that had gotten the short end of the stick, and got to take a minute to look at ways I could sorta fix the “hamster on a wheel” feeling that has been a staple for too long.
Speaking of that, and of the crazy work schedule and relative halt of work on the farm, I think I need to chat with you all a minute. I have been really struggling to keep up with this blog, and the stuff I have been creating for you has not been what I would consider my best work. It’s frustrating to want to do better and either not have the time or the brain space to make those things happen. It’s just really hard to want to write or edit videos after long stretches on the computer for work, and to be honest, the farm has always been my escape, and I’ve gotten to where I really don’t want to grab my phone to record things. I’m pretty tied to my phone for work as it is, and most of the time, I just want to go hug horses at the end of the day. So, we are going to make a mid-year change.
I’ve decided, for the latter half of 2024, we are going to cut down to one post a month, an end of the month recap. That feels attainable with my current life situation, and allows me to keep you guys up to date without constantly rushing to grab content, or worry that my entire update is going to be “work happened again”, or be up until 2 am trying to hit that 6 am post time because I miscalculated what week was what. So, instead of every Friday, it’ll just be either the 30th or 31st of the month. Then we will reevaluate in 2025 how we want to tackle things. I am not closing anything down, just going a little quieter for now, for stress reasons. I am hoping as things get more steady state, I can post some in between photos, maybe a shortie video here or there, but I don’t want to promise things until I kinda have a better grasp. I really appreciate the understanding.

I hate to leave things on a sour note, so I will leave you with a happy anecdote! Guess who worked out v2 of the Nellie Fly Mask? Now with snaps! Officially she hasn’t worn it yet, Ro has been stress testing it for me, and now they are maskless due to the smoke, but I am hopeful it is a solid quality of life improvement for her (and me)!
Anyways, friends, until we chat again!

Hello friends!
My goodness, was the end of June and first part of July more than crazy!

Let’s get to the most exciting part right away: We successfully pulled off my Grandma’s Surprise 80th Birthday Party! We did it! It came together perfectly, almost like we had worked on it religiously for six months or something haha.

I got up and made it to the venue way early, because I was so dang excited. Worked out though because the lovely lady in charge of the venue was there early too. I got the full walkthrough, and started setting up. That took way less time than I thought as well and it looked so cute! I took some pictures of the decor, but a lot of it was pretty personal so I will refrain from sharing more photos for other’s privacy.

Also had a funny moment while setting up, because I was in this 100+ year old building by myself for a while, and one of the things I hadn’t been told about this building is that the lights are motion sensored and timered, so they turn on and off seemingly randomly depending how much you (and your decor) move in the rooms. Queue me panic calling my dad because I am convinced the building is going to burn down because the lights are flickering on and off like crazy. I was pretty squigged out haha.

My grandma was so surprised when she got there. I have a lovely video that I will treasure forever of when she saw her brother and sister there. They had snuck in from out of town, the first time all three had been together in probably a decade, and it was a super tight fit scheduling wise, so I am so grateful it came together how it did. She was in tears for a while, so happy so much of her family could be there to have a big celebration with her!
We had SO much food! I was so convinced we weren’t going to have enough, because we were kinda conservative with the caterers but it was so much food that we had more than enough for the party, the after party (which I will get to), and I sent several dinners worth home with EVERYONE. And I still ended up eating exclusively leftovers for several days. The caterers, and the bakery that made the cake, all killed it. Turns out, it was the last catering job that the family was doing, and they had planned to close the company ahead of time, but the owner knows and loves my grandma so much that when we called they figured one more job wouldn’t hurt. I found this out after the fact and am so incredibly grateful!
After the party, which was about four hours on its own, my Grandma, with my parents’ help, took her siblings on a tour of the town and all the family haunts, which gave Christopher and I enough time to get everything home. A couple of my cousins hadn’t been able to make the actual party and asked if Grandma and her siblings were coming by my house after a while and would I text them when that happened. So I let the group text know when they all arrived, and after a bit everyone arrived for round two. The party didn’t break up until nearly ten pm this time, and the farm was so joyful with all the family and stories and teasing and good food. It was truly magical.
My only regret, and really it’s not a regret, as much as just something I want to remedy, is that my great aunt and uncle and aunt had to leave so quickly, it was definitely quite sad for them and my Grandma. So, now, it’s become my whole mission to get them all together again, more frequently than once a decade, because I can’t imagine only seeing Christopher once a decade, I’d be so unhappy.

My sweet cousin is also officially married! To her high school sweetheart, they are starting their little life together and it’s the sweetest thing. She was the most gorgeous bride, and the wedding was so lovely! Just perfect! That happened three days after the party, it was an incredibly busy weekend. It was also fiddle week, which I am usually much more involved in, but understandably, I didn’t have the time to pull anything off. I also have been just buried at work so it was honestly a stretch to get the things pulled off that we did.

To be honest, since that whirlwind weekend, it’s been mostly work. Something pretty major blew up at work while I was not reachable that weekend, and my sweet team kept it from me until I got back, even though I am the resident expert on the particular third party that caused chaos. I am so grateful they waited until I was back and didn’t message me mid party. We got it resolved, and honestly, they were totally handling it without me. I functioned more as a gut check and a safety blanket than anything, and reviewed a lot of code.

Unfortunately though, between that and the on-call shift from hades, I haven’t really been off the clock completely since. We had several major issues, and at one point I worked a 72 hour stint at the computer just trying to keep things from catching on fire. It was insane. It’s calmed down mostly for now, but we are in repair and review mode, and I have a feeling a lot of to-dos are coming out of this. I am so lucky though, I love my team, and most days I like my job (don’t ask me if I do after 72 hours of staring at database metrics though, my answer will change), so when things are rough we get through it together and come out better for it. Startups, am I right?
Anyways, hope you all are doing well! Watch a sunset for me, and as always:
Until we chat again, my friends!