just what the chiro ordered.

it's been a real couple of days i'll say...
in the early 80's i worked on a dairy farm in delta and it may have been the physically hardest job i ever had - and i loved it. i worked for a farmer named bob robertson and, while i can't remember how it was that i ended-up working there but i did and it was hard work. we'd do the 'haying' which was baleing and throwing of the bales by hand onto the back of a flat deck that was towed by the tractor, then transfer them from the flat deck to the conveyor that took them into the barn and stack them inside. the first summer i was there we moved and stacked over 8000 bales of hay which ended-up being like 16000 because you actually moved them twice each. anyhow, hard work. when i first started working there i was amazed by the size of the lunches his wife would make us. plates of huge sandwiches and soups and fresh milk and other drinks. by the end of the first week i knew why she made all the food - we needed it.
besides 'haying', i would clean the stalls, clean the tractors, mow the lawn, help bring the cows in for milking, etc. it was great. i worked there for two full summers and during the school year would work there on weekends and after school on weekdays. friday at work reminded me of working on the farm.
while i can't say too much i will say this. we are using a sand to dress part of the set of the film we're on and it's literally tons of sand. literally close to 200 thousand tons. friday we, andrew, john and i, were asked to help out and re-do part of the set with this sand. we added another 25 tons on friday - and as luck would have it we had a some help near the middle portion with a few other other guys who could be cut from the regular set help us out. most of it is in 80 lb. bags that you have to manhandle into place and other bits come in 2200 lb 'sling' bags that we can just dump. it was sweaty work. hard on the old (bad) back...but i kinda liked it as well.
the day before don-hoven (as andrew calls him), andrew and i went to set and helped tear down this set piece that proved to be a dirty job. some people would just stop and start laughing at me when they saw how dirty i was...well, how dirty we all were....
so it was a couple days out of the shop which was a nice change of pace.
and then yesterday morning i was a 13 year old climbing trees...i had, in a weak moment, agreed to help one of my lawn order clients prune a few of her trees at her strata over near city hall. and while i did have a couple ladders, it was easier (?) to just climb the trees and hold on with one hand and cut or saw with the other. it was awesome...and then after that good time - and it was - i cut the lawn and was on my way...to cut a bunch more lawns...in this heat cutting is a deal. it's almost as if i can't drink enough fluids i'm sweating so much.
i did have a nice little break in my cutting day when i met ailsa and fiona at 'finest at sea' over on (g)arbutus st. and had some fish and chips...(i ate like a starving man yesterday...i couldn't get enough food in me as i did my work...) i'd been trying to get the gals there for some fish and yesterday we finally made it. i like that place.
then it was off to richmond for one last lawn.
and then, like a geezer, i was in bed by 10 a.m.

ok. a couple more lawns today and a little clean-up of my home and deck...have fun today.

g. xo