Almost September

So we finally got paid from the farmer.  I tried calling him frequently; usually I was routed to a full mailbox.  Finally I got through to him and he strung us along for a few days.  That culminated last Saturday when he said he would hand us our checks Saturday -later.

Which turned into him not answering his phone and another full mailbox.

The Firebird had reorganized his Saturday evening schedule, so when the farmer didn't answer Sunday morning, I texted my neighbor, who had referred me originally, and was working the farmstand that day.

I told her to tell the farmer that if we didn't receive both overdue checks first thing Monday morning we would be out there picketing, and I would file a complaint with the labor board. (I already had the form)

Shortly afterward, translated into after coffee, I texted her again and told her to forget it and hoped she was well, because I didn't think it was right to involve her, even if she did and does work for the same fellow (who owes her something like 7 weeks pay)

Low and behold she pulled in Sunday evening waving envelopes-she said they were in the time card slot and she took the liberty to bring them to us.

Which was very strange, because a few weeks ago when farmer said he was doing payroll, we went the next morning to check the time card slot, and then called him, and when he finally returned my call he was quite snippy and said he put the paychecks for "people who worked for him" in the slots, but was to hand us our checks personally...so we had to go back after dark to pick up the one check several weeks ago.

I am fairly sure the neighbor passed on my first text.  I am terrible at manipulating people because I am too honest.  I wanted my pay and the Firebird his pay.  I gave farmer the benefit of the doubt (that he was too busy to write checks) and tried calling him to remind him.

 I don't think it was lack of money, because I was delivering huge amounts daily and seeing the invoices, plus he had bigger deliveries on his own truck.  Granted, the big supermarket chain might only pay monthly, but farmer never said it was a money shortage.

Farmer did have a reputation as a spoiled bully.  One person expressed the opinion that farmer just didn't want to pay.  So, the phone calling wasn't working.  You can't bully a bully.  Neighbor told me that farmer had lots of notes on board from the labor board, and he told her, "mothers looking for their sons payckecks"

We were not an isolated incident, by any stretch of the imagination.  But Firebird was heading for college and needed that money for books.

How could I bully an egotistical control freak in a non-violent manner?

The light bulb went off...picket the farm stand at the farm.  Farmer's wife has removed herself pretty much from the business, his teen children are little to no help (I was so proud of how hard the Firebird worked)...and farmer obviously did not me hanging around looking for checks if he wanted us to come after dark and see him personally. 


Picketing. Yep, I figured that would do it.  The last thing farmer wanted at the height of farmstand season was having a couple disgruntled employees waving signs around complaining of his not paying help.

My neighbor even commented on the rain we had that day when she gave me the checks-not good picketing weather...

So that ended well...although we still haven't filled out W-4's to account for that "estimated withholding" he tacked on to every check.
 ****

My friend is dying.  My friend with the colon cancer.,  They found another tumor near the original site, but it was big (3x7cm) and aggressive.  If you are squeamish you may want to stop reading.

He was five days in the hospital.  The couldn't get all of it, it was very deep.  And he went home with a drain and a vaccuum pump strapped to his stomach.  Which is a very clever idea, isn't it, with cancer?  To forcibly suck the fluids out of the surgical site where they removed the tumor.  But to read about it isn't the same as seeing your friend on a beautiful summer day, walking around his yard in a tshirt and shorts and sandals-with those comfy hospital socks still on his feet, while the machine strapped to him gurgles and farts (his rectum is sewn shut so those noises had to be coming from the drain in the enormous hole the tumor left in his bottom)

To see your friend, who had finally started to look normal again, and work again, be reduced to a cavernous smoky shadow of himself-yes, I can see the color of cancer, it is dusky black, and my friend has it bad.

Chemo again?  He went through 7 rounds of chemo after his first surgery, confident the extra treatment, although they were brutal and left him weak and sick, would be the cure.  And the cancer has returned.  More rounds of chemo-he says, "what choice do I have?" meaning, "should I just give up?"

He was to see his doctor the next day-I was thinking, has it spread??? I walked around like a zombie for three days.  I drank and smoked like a fiend.  My friend is dying. 

I finally looked up colon cancer online.  65% -five year survival rate.

  My friend said something about getting a pool next summer, when a visitor that stopped in, kept saying he had to get back to his pool ...R said, "I'm getting a pool next summer" but he looked at me and trailed off the end of the sentence.

My friend is dying.

Como estas?

Me, I have been busy.  Well, I am usually up to one thing or another, but the Firebird kept on that he needed a job, and my neighbor came by awhile ago and asked if I would be willing to help out at a farm?

Sure I said, the Firebird and I had been puttering about at the goat farm, he stacking the upcoming winter supply of firewood and me taking down 7 strands of electric fence which I installed a number of years ago to  contain long gone cashmere bucks.

My neighbor told me she worked 8-2 doing greenhouse work, and said that I could work as much as I wanted, so figured 3-4 days a week would be a good filler with the goat farm.

Bait and switch comes to mind.  I went in , learned the watering routine for the greenhouse, was instructed in the mass planting of cabbage seed.  The following Monday the Firebird and I were handed an EZ seeder and the brief instructions that accompanied it, and the tidbit that none of them had been able to make use of it.

Relegated to the packing room, we read the directions, scabbed a table together, and proceeded to seed 800, 98 cell flats.. (nearly 80,000 seeds). 

The official too late to seed cabbage day came this week, and we moved on to separate chores.  The backbone of the crew are three Mexican immigrant workers we call "the guys".  The guys have aided the owner in a huge major agricultrual production.  Hay, Oats, corn (field and sweet due any day) zuccini, broccoli, cauliflower, greenhouse tomatoes the size of...mini pumpkins, cukes and of course cabbage.  The five of us spent an afternoon planting over 9000 cabbage seedlings (only 100,000 to go, because our 80K are still in the greenhouse and there is at least that many on benches awaiting transplanting)

Everyday brings something new to learn to this experienced gardener...running irrigation tape (although my time at the beekeepers gave me knowledge in big tanks and hoses)  sitting on the back of a planter dropping those precious cabbage seedlings one at a time after yanking them out of the cells by the handfuls by their hair...and failing to keep up, and having my co-worker Pablo tossing plants from his racks into my spots as I frantically try and dump the empty tray, or cherolla, and grab the next one...(think Lucy trying to keep up in the chocolate factory)

And discovering that you can take 3 years of Spanish in Middle school (technically 2 years of Portugeuse and one year of Spanish according to my mortified 9th grade Spanish teacher) and still not be able to follow a conversation by your co-workers....

I can read the notes the owner leaves for them in Spanish, and the youngest, who speaks nearly zero English and I have managed to communicate even though I cannot remember proper grammar I have a pretty extensive vocab that keeps creeping in, and I am great at hand gestures although sometimes I think we have a huge communications gap, mostly due to my horrible pronunciation.

Sometimes I ask teen Pablo, "como se dice....?" and he replies in something that I cannot possibly form my mouth around, and I just say the English word...and hope he is learning English better than I am his dialect and we both laugh.

The other two have a bit more English, so I typically address them in English- occasionally tossing in a Spanish verb or noun or saying. Buenos Dias, Hasta Luego, Hasta manana, Salud, lots of SI, SI...

 I go home at night and call the dog perro, and the cat gato, and the occasional "bueno" or mierda slip out... but I have a long way to go.

Today I had a cell phone call from the mejor, who has the most English.

"We need more broccoli!"

"Broccoli?"  I replied, confused, knowing they were picking squash in a field a half hour away, while I was behind transplanting broccolis and cauliflower.

"NO, Broccoli!!" he replied

"BRoccoli?"

Silence on both ends.  Then he called across his field to the Firebird, "come tell your mother what we need~"

(waiting, waiting, waiting)

"Hi Mom, we need buckets, (and hear S in the background, and those green things) and those green things"

I couldn't find extra "green things" or totes, and took them five buckets.  I had to pick  Pablo up from the squash field a couple times this week and the yield was 20 yellow squash and 40 zuccini. Today I got sidetracked waiting for a co worker to wash out the truck to take, and then had to show her how to water the 100K plus cabbage awating transplanting...and showed up with  5, 5 gallon buckets to find the three guys and Firebird had picked 8 totes full of zucc and summer squash and cukes weighing over 80 pounds a tote, and they set them in the truck bed under the cap leaving me to figure out how to get the tailgate shut and unload them back at the shop .....

Then running to the shop to give a coworker a lift back from the garage...the company fleet each have their own issues.  Speedometer permanently stuck at 40, no brakes, bad tie rods, check engine lights, airbag lights, my favorite was the day I had to drive 30 miles back to the shop to pick up more seedlings in this giant box truck...never driven something so large in my life...just, "hey, you go back and get more cabbage...NOW"

and I jump in and take off, never adjusting the side mirrors, andfind myself taking the wrong turn right into a rotary in the state capital.

I would have turned around but I didn't think I could back it up or even take a tight turn.

Let me tell you, you think your life is getting stale, have someone throw you into something that you never considered doing while they have complete confidence or indifference in your ability or lack thereof, and then succeed...

well, that's seasonal agriculture for you.

*wanders off humming 100thousand cabbages to plant, 100thousand cabbages..."