So Friday morning sucked a little. The ice from Thursday had thawed a bit then froze overnight again. So everything had a slick slippery sheen to it.
I fed hay and corn to all the cattle. Strawed the barn at dad’s for the young calves and ground some corn to put in the tank to bucket feed.
I also had to do some running. Meeting with a landlord. Also, running to the New Holland/Kenzie dealer in town to get some parts for the planter.
There’s $100 worth of stuff in that small box. That’s with the current sale price too.
So dad is out of town with mom. March 1, as I believe I mentioned last year is the start of trout fishing at the state parks in Missouri. I don’t think dad has missed an opening day in about 25 years. So they’re gone for that. But may be returning a day or so early due to some incoming winter weather.
With him being gone his friend, who occasionally helps us out, thought he needed to help me feed with dad being gone. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate help, I don’t want to sound like an ***, but sometimes I’d just rather take my time, work by myself, and do things the way I’d like them to be done.
However, with him being around things don’t work like that. It usually turns into he thinks he needs to give the orders and make decisions. Which usually aggravates me and usually ends up in things taking twice as long, which naturally aggravates me even more.
Matters were no better when he showed up yesterday morning with his son and his daughters boyfriend. His son is 15, the kid is eager to come down all the time but he thinks farming just consist of cruising around on Kubota or 7230 all day doing nothing. His daughter’s boyfriend he brought along is about 19, know it all, lost his license, doesn’t have a job, lives with them and does nothing. The combination of all these things can really irritate me. Like I said, I’m not trying to be an ***. I try to be a nice guy. But I’m sure if you follow along and have picked up on anything. I tend to like to have things done in an orderly fashion and when I want it done it needs to be done and we’re not going to mess around. There’s work to do we’re going to do it right and get it done.
Warning: at this time this post turns into a bit of a rant.
I told dad’s friend if he wanted to put out hay that was fine. I told him what type of hay I wanted fed where and how many bales to put out. I told him where I wanted him to spread some straw out. All he had to do. But it turns out he didn’t put out the hay I told him to. He put out what he thought was best, which was what was easiest to do.
I told the boys right away to grab 6 buckets of corn for me and 4 bags of mineral. They messed around on the Kubota before finally doing it. I had to get on them I was not in a mood to mess around since we had things to do.
The daughter’s boyfriend went with dad’s friend. His son came with me. While the other two were putting out hay, the son and I opened gates, fed corn and put out mineral.
The son is not a very productive worker. I try to be nice and fully explain what I want him to do, a lot of times I even show him how to do it. But it wasn’t much use. He didn’t listen when it came to feeding the corn and had a hell of time with the mineral bags. He insisted on complaining about the mud as if I haven’t been doing the same thing in the mud for the last 3 months. But I just bit my lip. He seemed more focused on being bummed out that I was the one driving the Kubota and that he had to lift 50 pound bags of mineral.
Now the crew that was putting out hay. As I mentioned didn’t put out the hay I’d told them to. The straw bales they picked to spread out were the worst 2 and soaked from sitting outside bales that they could’ve picked. Then the daughter’s boyfriend was riding along in the cab in between putting bales out he just left the cab door wide open. Open to catch any cow, feeder, fence post, whatever that could easily be hit and break off or completely shatter the door. With this crew it’s easy for something to be broken so I wasn’t taking any chance. I received an eye roll when I told him that was likely a $500 door and I’d appreciate if he kept it closed so it wasn’t damaged. That’s the type of stuff that irritates me. But I just have to remember. He’s 19, clearly full of dumb decisions, it’s all part of it.
That’s just a touch of the annoyances of the morning. Luckily, after the feeding was done they left. I try to be patient, I try to bit my tongue. But a lot of little things can add up and build up frustration. I know I should be appreciative of the assistance. It’s just that this is the guy that always wants to borrow something, usually ends up breaking something, always wants some sort of a hand out, wants to take something for nothing, wants to only do things the way he thinks they should be done, it’s just hard to handle after awhile.
Before they left while I was putting thing in the barn I saw them load up about 4 pallets in the bed of his truck. I asked what they were doing. He said, “oh I was wanting some pallets for some stuff, you don’t mind do you?”. Don’t get me wrong we have a big *** stack of pallets, you’ve probably seen them in pictures back by the grain bins. Am I going to use them? Probably not, at least not all of them that’s for sure. It’s just the principle of asking someone for something instead of just assuming you can take something that isn’t yours to begin with. It wouldn’t be a big deal if this was the first time it happened. But it’s not. He tends to think an hour of his help is worth him getting things for free all the time. Or an hour of his time is worth an hours use of one of the tractors. It doesn’t work like that. But it doesn’t help that my dad can never tell anyone no. He’s never been able to. That was always my uncle’s job. My uncle was always the jerk. Which is the position I’m going to have to fill.
Ok I know that was a lot. Sometimes you just have to get this **** off your chest. I have to deal with a lot as it is. Dealing with other people’s BS doesn’t help things out and I don’t have the time for it. So rant over. For now.
Excuse me as I may have to go slam a beer Stone Cold Steve Austin style after something like that.
