What she said/ what I said

When I got to the job site on Wednesday,  Sherry and her husband were sitting on their back deck.

“You are a slave driver!” she said.  “I was up until midnight,  so I could have those boards you needed ready. “ (I am paneling her 4 seasons room with car-siding.)

“Waaaaaaaa.” 

Did I just say that, I thought to myself?  . 🙂

She laughed.

I laughed.

It was all good…

Been working off and on for this couple the past couple of months.  A lot of health issues going on.

A lot of heartache.

I’ve had great talks with both of them.

Deep stuff/ fun stuff.

Wife and I share a love for the Little House on the Prairie series, so we’ve even had conversations about that.

Took it to the next level that morning.

Don’t remember if Dale Carnegie mentioned teasing in his book on people skills.      😉

Felt like I was in slightly uncharted waters.

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Have you ever experienced some heavy duty heartache and had someone(s) in your life do a great job of helping you regain your bearings?  How did they do it? What did they do?  What didn’t they do?….or, if you want to,  Have you ever experienced the  opposite?

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I had a good week.  Great week actually.  Received (3) unexpected tips from 3 different customers….plus a huge lead on two potential  projects for next year.  One of my customers from last year, was  bragging about me to this potential client…she even repeated  to me some of what she said about me.

That was neat.

Met with them in person yesterday morning.  Had a great rollicking conversation.  At one point, the husband looked a little uptight, (His arms were crossed, and there was this look on his face).  🙂

I asked, “What are you thinking about right now?”

“I feel like curling up in the fetal position.” 🙂

I laughed,

He laughed.

I think this would be a fun project.  (it’s a mother/ daughter addition to their house plus a new garage).

I will keep you posted.

Well, time to get moving.   DM

Historical perspective on money and personal debt

Hey John, ( and anybody else who cares to listen) 🙂

This picture caught my eye the other day and I wanted you to  see it.

I wanted to plant a financial seed in your minds eye if I may. 🙂

It is the home of Dr Lebron Lackey, still standing after a 250 mph hurricane.  Notice his neighbors…

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When I was studying early Iowa history one of the things that struck me, (and we never covered in school), was the number of other recessions and depressions that had taken place.

All I had ever learned about was The Great Depression of 1929.  

We never talked about the Panic of 1837, that lasted until 1843 – (6 years).

“The Panic of 1837 was one of the longest and deepest depressions of the 19th century. It was a period of pronounced deflation and massive default on debt.”

Then came the the Panic of 1857  that  didn’t really turn around until after  the Civil War – (7 years).

“…the years immediately preceding the Panic of 1857 were prosperous, many banks, merchants, and farmers had seized the opportunity to take risks with their investments and as soon as market prices began to fall, they quickly began to experience….. financial panic”.

Or The panic of 1873 that lasted until 1879   (6 years).

Since you didn’t bring this topic up, I am kind of reluctant to get too preachy,  but knowing what I know,  it would be just wrong of me to not say something.

Back in  January of 2014, I was  at my wit’s end (financially).  To use a word picture at the time,  I felt like I was flying a 747 and we were about 10 to 15 feet above the ocean.

Yes we were still in the air, and yes we were still moving, but the waves were lapping at the wings, and I was tired.   Being self employed, my income can vary a lot from year to year…as much as a 1/3.   I  sat down, crunched some numbers and realized we had been spending $700 a month more than I was making for a couple of years.  Our budget was based on the incomes of better years. Those extra expenses were going  fun things like heating bills, medical bills and medical insurance.

We’ve never been big on going out to eat, yada, yada….

So there you go, and it was right in the midst of that craziness that I came across the book by Mary Hunt called  Debt Proof Living.

Within a month of reading it, I had hope.  Finally had some practical ideas on how to get some distance between myself and the water.

Our income hasn’t change all that much, but (knock on wood) we’ve been able to pay off all of the credit card debt, our car loan, a line of credit loan, and the loan to build that little extension on my shop.  Over $30,000 worth of debt, on the same income…we switched medical health insurance coverage that saved us $400 a month, and replaced the 20 year old furnace/ shut off the heat to the 2nd floor of our home and whacked another $300 a month off expenses.

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So when I see that picture of the house still standing when the neighbors have all been blown away, I see someone making different financial decisions than the rest of the culture.

Pop culture says, debt is just a normal part of life.

I say we are living in a fools paradise.

Historically, things go in cycles.

We are way past due for another financial $@#% storm.

Get out of debt and stay out of debt.

It is possible to raise a family on one blue collar income.

You can take that to the bank.

The tree was humming…

I  didn’t want to go to work this morning. (And I love my job) 🙂

I wanted to stay home and putter.

The  apple trees are simply loaded with flowers…

 

The honey bees are scheduled to be split this morning.  (I found a local bee keeper who was willing to come by and see  if they’re ready to be split into two hives.)  He has 40 years experience…This  is my 3rd season…even that is hard to believe.   Wow,

He’s supposed to be here at 9 AM.

Let’s hope he is a good mentor

Sure looks like a  queen cell to me 🙂  (That little peanut shaped thing sticking out from the bottom of that frame).

And..well, it’s morel mushroom season again.  Two weeks of serendipitous discoveries. 🙂

Grey morel mushrooms on the edge of the windbreak.

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And in the garden, I’m experimenting with a combination/ square foot gardening/ heavy mulch (think Ruth Stout) layout, with wood chips covering everything this growing season.  I do have (6) 4 ft by 12 ft long wooden boxed beds, but the level of the soil in the bed is the same as the walkways.  The problem with raised beds is that the water leaches out, so a lot more time is spent watering.

Simple is better.

2019 garden layout.

Doubling the size this year with three more 12 ft by 16 ft beds. Still need to put wood chips over the cardboard. I do this to smother the grass.  Next Spring this will be ready to plant.  No tilling, no weeding, no watering, and the earth worm count will be off the chart.   I have 6 to 12 inches of black Iowa top soil I am planting into.  There used to be 3 feet of topsoil, but now it’s measured in inches.  Much of it (Iowa topsoil) has wound up in the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s sterile.

One quick story.

Last week after work,  while I was hunting  morel’s in the orchard, something caught my attention.  The tree was humming…. I’m not joking, it was literally alive with noise…the noise of dozens of  honey bees (our bees)  moving quickly from one flower to the next.

What a joy.

Several of them were caked with yellow pollen:

Photo by Google

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Couple of years ago now, I gave a link to my farming blog to a friend of a friend who ran  a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) on the East coast.  Since she had been gardening on a much bigger scale, and for a lot longer than I, I was genuinely interested in getting her input..

Big mistake.

Condescending and impatient.

I had an equally disappointing relationship with a local bee keeper the first season I had bees.  Nice guy, big heart, but that is as far as it went.  He wasn’t verbal,  I got this sense he was making things up as he went. 🙂 (turned out he was)

 

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Good mentors are hard to find.

A mentor is a teacher.  Someone willing to pass on to another person their practical wisdom in an area of life.

Have you ever been mentored?

Have any stories to tell?

Anything else on your mind?

Take care. DM

 

 

 

 

Overlooking Main Street and other short stories

I’d heard my urologist was a fellow bee keeper, and that he’d lost all of his bees this past winter, so when I went to see him yesterday for my annual visit,  that’s the first thing I asked him about.

“I heard you lost  your bees?”

“Yep.”

He said this was his 4th season as a bee keeper.

He told me he bottled 185 honey bear last year.

He asked me how mine did?

“They came through great!” I told him.

I struggled to find the words….I’d never seen anything like it, this thick mass of bees, just milling around in the middle of February. (On a rare 50 degree day in February, I  had opened the hive to slip in some extra winter pollen patties.)    I told him, on a hunch, I’d  put a couple of extra inches of Styrofoam on 3 sides of the hive when it got really cold, and since it was their first season, I decided not to take any honey.  I suggest to him that doing those two things, plus the mite control in the fall  all contributed to their surviving.  Who knows.   It sounded good. 😉

Then we moved onto the reason for my visit.

My psa number had dropped again for the 4th time in a row. (Happy dance.)  The psa  number is a reference point urologists use as an indicator for possible prostate cancer.  It is not an exact science.  You can have a low psa number and still  have cancer, or as in my case, a high number and no cancer present.   Mine was off the chart 2 winters ago (26) which resulted in a biopsy where they  put me under.  (They took 40 some core samples.)    Six months later my psa dropped to 17, then 11.5 and yesterday 10.

As I was leaving his office my doctor came around the corner with a honey bear. He said he had just two left…

Made me feel special. 🙂

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Since I still had  a good hour before I was supposed to be on the job, (we’re repairing a deck,)  I called my sister  just to see how her weekend went with my parents?   Sister mentioned she was down at her store, and since I was in the area, wondered if I had time for a cup of coffee….?

When I got to the store, there was nobody there except her, so we sat in her front window over looking main street.  Just my sister and I.   First, we caught up on her weekend, then  we started talking about childhood memories growing up…..the good and the not so good.  We also talked about various “what if” scenarios, as my parents age.  Not saying this is how things will ultimately shake out, but how much better to have these conversations, before.   Ended up having  a 40 minute therapy session, right there in the front store window over looking main street.

It was awesome.

I texted her last night  to tell her again, how much I enjoyed our visit.  She texted me back,  said she felt the same way.

One of my life goals is to age gracefully.

I’ve known both types , so I know what it looks like.

Absolutely, there needs to be a place where I can process the loss of my youth, and it will probably be right here on a personal blog post, just so you know.  🙂

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Got time for one last story?

Last Tuesday I was invited to take one of my chickens to school.  Grandson was studying farm animals, and his mom asked if I would be willing to come to school with a chicken?

“Absolutely” I said.

As I thought about what sort of things Kindergarten kids would get a kick out of, I decided  to tell a couple of stories, then let them pet the chicken.

I told them about how my last batch of chickens and their love for cat food…Told them how when I let them out in the morning to free range, the first thing they did, was run around the back of our house, into the entry and clean out the cat food bowl.

First thing/ every morning.

 

Then, at some point they discovered our neighbor, an 1/8 of a mile west of us, also had cat food in a bowl, so that’s where they would head next.  (It wasn’t long after that, that I sent them packing.)

So as I was wrapping up my visit, I asked the kids that age old question, “So, why do you think,  the chicken cross the road?” 

One little girl said,  “Because they were going to the neighbors to eat cat food.”

Now you know.

Henny Penny and I visiting school

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Well, I better to get to work.  DM