Farm Life

I amin the middle of haying on my father's farm. I'm realizing more and more each week that my father is in poor health and is physically unable to maintain this farm. It is my job to do the haying, I guess.

Here's a progress report:

Cut: 9/16
Raked: 5/16
Baled: 5/16
Stacked: 0/16

The weather was supposed to be beautiful all weekend, but there was a big rain this afternoon at about 4:30. That should put me behind, and will ruin 2 big fields. I doesn't matter though.

I was planning to write a long entry here, but this room has too many mosquitoes. They are eating me alive. More later, I hope.

Weekend Away

I gave platelets on Friday, and watched Wedding Crashers. I was thoroughly disappointed with the film, but the donation went well. My donation went over to Sick Kids.

I headed out of Toronto at 4:00, but didn't get to Barrie until 7:00. Dumb Friday-night-get-me-out-of-Toronto-as-quickly-as-possible traffic.

Saturday was all about errands and golf. We headed out to the course for a 3:00 tee time, and no one in our foursome played particularly well, but the rainclouds rolled over and thunder started rumbling at the 6th tee. The warning horn sounded and we ended up getting a rain check for a free round. I was super happy, because I played 5 holes for free and during my usual detours through the woods, I found 11 golf balls.

We went to the beach today. The lake was warm, but we didn't spend too long there. I did manage to get a terrific sunburn on the tops of my legs.

We watched the U.S. Open this afternoon. Though we didn't get it on the television since we only have an antenna. We did watch it on TSN braodband though. We were skeptical at first, but the speed and quality were quite good. The resolution wasn't fantastic at full-screen mode, but there weren't huge delays, and we could still see the ball. I was actually very impressed. It was commercial-free (except for a few brief ads before the presentation started) and it was obvious that when the network cut away for an ad break, we had bonus coverage. It was a great experience and I will not only watch golf this way again, but would also highly recommend it. It won't be long until all television is done this way, and, hopefully, it will remain free.

I'm heading back to my Dad's tomorrow. The weather has been nice, and we've started our haying. I'm hoping that a few stretches of nice weather will mean that we can get the whole thing done quickly. Things never work out smoothly on the farm though, so anything can happen. I'll try to keep the world informed over the coming weeks.

News Brief

I'm back in Toronto briefly. I'm giving platelets today and then heading out again for the weekend. I haven't had reliable Internet for such a long time, but "Last published on May 9th" is pathetic.

My father is driving me crazy, and I really don't want to be there to help anymore. The haying has started which should make things a little easier, I hope. We just need some stretches of nice weather.

I have so much to do today, and so I've squeezed in this time to blog. I don't know why that's the case, but it always is: busy equals blog, sitting around putting in time equals nothing.