Sunday, January 22, 2006

News: Susi worked (kinda)

BG came yesterday, which meant it was a work day for me!! While my guests, the boys and the Father, did their visiting at Hampden Sydney College, she & I planted all the flats in the greenhouse with spring veggies. Then we went to look at the weedy raised beds. I was all for leaving them alone, but BG started tearing out weeds, and cleaning out the old mulching newspapers and plants that either hadn't flourished or were long dead.

Then she looked at the stockpiled rotted horse manure and so 'we' got the tractor out to start filling the beds with it. Of course, I'm a reluctant participant in this, since it's a lot of WORK!!! She has the energy & drive, and I'm still getting up out of my chair!

We used the front end loader to scoop up the well rotted manure. Sounds easy? It isn't. I'm on the tractor, BG gesturing which way to move the loader.... and I'm trying to remember how to move the joystick control to make it go the right way. And it's a hydrostatic transmission, which means there are two accelerators, one forward & one for backing on the right & the brakes on the left. I kept wanting to hit the forward accelerator to stop! WRONG!

My peabrain was overloaded. I had to tell myself what to do out loud, so I could translate BG's wishes into what I had to do with the controls. By the end of the task I was doing better, but poor BG's frustration level was high. She was shoveling the whole time, so each bucket load would be a full one. I was sitting on the tractor uselessly watching her work.

Each load she'd shovel in, because I couldn't get a full load by just scooping (unlevel ground, operator error). Then she'd jigtime over to the bed and guide me in so I didn't dump it on the ground. I'm sitting, she's moving fast. It didn't help that I'd had the stuff put on top of tarps which got tangled up in the manure, and made the last foot or so a dense muddy mess. We did this for about 3 hours.

How can she work at that pace! I called for the only break, as I remember!

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