Aspirations

Got a call this morning from a guy named Dave.   Dave sells post and beam construction houses and is looking for a local crew to sub out part of a project.  Before coming to Iowa, he was in the military jumping out of air planes.  After that he worked  for a spell building million dollar log homes in Colorado.  Spent some time living off the grid out west.  Finally settled down and started a family.  Now he’s in Iowa.  His body is shot.  Got my name from the guy I’d gotten honey bees from last year.

I was telling my crew about the conversation at break.

Jason made the comment he’d love to start general contracting  larger projects.

I told him my aspiration, is to learn the art of consistently growing large onions. (I still haven’t figured it out.)

Learn how to consistently grow large onions and get a few laying hens. (again) 😉

Ones that lay large brown eggs.

Nothing like stepping outside in the morning before heading to work, heading over to the chicken house for breakfast.   Eggs that are still warm.  Chop up a large onion,  saute in butter.  Maybe  cook up a little bacon or ham,  Couple of eggs over easy....and coffee….dark roast.

Now that is a thing of beauty. 🙂

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Fell into my life calling quite by accident. Been doing it for 40 plus years.  Intended to go to college after a working for a year for my dad.  At the end of that first year, I realized I loved construction. I loved what I was doing, and if I stayed with it long enough, it held out the possibility of making a decent income.  I love working with my hands.  Love using applied math to calculate roof pitches, stairs stringers,  estimates, etc.   I stick framed a  high-end  house roof  back in the 1990’s that had 27 hips and valley’s.  Two story, 12/ 12 pitch.  Yep.  Been there done that.  General contracted enough houses (5) to get that out of my system too.  I can give you several reasons why I would never/ ever general contract a house again. Sub out parts of it, absolutely. General the whole thing.  Nada.

I’m all about stress management.

Love it when the phone doesn’t ring.

 

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Came across the following  30 years ago and it continues to inform my choices:

“It is vain that you rise up early and go late to bed, eating the bread of anxious toil…for the Lord gives to his beloved sleep (or gives to his beloved in his sleep”)

(A Jewish scripture.  Psalm 127:2)

I’ve written on this topic multiple times. Here’s a link if you’re interested.

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If you were having coffee with me today,  how would you  answer that question on goals and aspirations (currently)?

I’m genuinely interested. DM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Family reunion talent show update

Saturday night was the long-awaited talent show at my wife’s family reunion in Grand Island Nebraska.

Read this first  to know the context of what follows.

Three fourth’s the way through the program it was my turn.

While I had the normal pre-performance jitters,  I was actually pretty calm and relaxed until I had the floor.

As I stood in front of the group,  I got choked up.

A wave of emotion  hit me out of nowhere,  and my voice started to break.

 

100% happy/ positive good stuff going on inside..but  wow…

Took me 20 seconds to compose myself.

(Talk about a hook to get people’s attention) 😉

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It all started back in July of 2015 when I watched a little girl, (I’m guessing she was about 4)  sing a solo in front of 90 people, most of whom she didn’t know.

The next morning when I complimented her on her performance, she  asked me a question that has followed me around for 3 years…”Why hadn’t I signed up for the talent show?”

Her question caught be  off guard, and whenever I thought of it, it felt like God (or the universe if you prefer) was gently asking me that question.

Why not? Why hadn’t I put myself out there?…And the bigger question,  not just at a family talent show but in a hundred other situations in life as a whole.

What am I afraid of?

The truth was, is,  I fear of making a fool of myself.  I fear I have nothing worthwhile to contribute.

These kind of thoughts  normally keeps me safely in my seat,  hidden in the middle of the audience.

But in the weeks leading up to this family reunion, that question continued to challenge me.   I realized I did have something (possibly several somethings ) I could share) Maybe my “talent”, didn’t  fit into the standard box at a talent show..(sing, play a musical instrument, or dance) but that’s OK.

I opted to tell a short story.

Yea, I took several of yours advice and told a story.  Condensed something that normally takes me 30 minutes to tell into 3 minutes, so it was a little abbreviated, but that’s OK.

I pushed past my insecurities and fears and did it.

To use a biblical word picture,  I heard a voice calling me to step out of the boat, and  walk on water.…

What

a

rush.

Picture of Mary and I afterwards.

 

 

 

Moving off the farm

Picture of dad milking by hand/ early 1970’s

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Tomorrow is a BIG day.

We are moving my parents off the family farm.

I was nine years old when we moved to the farm.  Had never been around farm life before that, except for a few early memories of my grandparents farm (I was 4 when they moved to town.)

Growing up on a  120 acre working family farm shaped me in ways I will probably never fully appreciate.  Dad bought 20 Holstein milk cows when I turned 12.  Expressed purpose was to give us some spending money. (And keep us out of mischief.)  Milking is a two times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year activity.  Up close and personal with the whole cycle of life.   Learned about delivering babies, afterbirth, still birth, cesarean births,  the art of milking a first time heifer whose utters are on fire with mastitis.  Learned how to deflect the back hoof of an animal ten times my body weight, that wanted to kick the crap out of me, because she didn’t  like what I was doing to her.

Manure.  Could write a book on the topic.  Sometimes you just have to block out the fact, you are getting splattered with e-coli.

Doing chores… Climbing into a dimly lit haymow in the dead of winter, afraid one of the banshees from Darby O’Gill would appear at any second.

Winter mornings so stink’n cold my fingers felt like they were on fire.

I learned it was not a good idea to engage the power-take-off on the manure spreader with a 20 mile wind to my back.

I remember side raking hay,  singing along to the radio, in the middle of August listening to Band on the run.

Last month, I worked alongside a young man vacuuming hallways.  He  lasted three days. Told my son that his wrist was bothering him.  Said he had pulled an all nighter playing video games, and wondered if he could knock off an hour early. I felt sorry for him.  He doesn’t know any different.

Baling hay in the summer is still one of my favorite memories.  My job of choice was  in the hay-mow.  Our barn could hold 300 tons of hay if we packed it to the top.   (10,000 bales X 60# = 60,000# divided by 2000# = 300 tons) Over the course of a season, I would have handled every one of those bales at least once.    In mid July, in Iowa, the temperature gets into the upper 90’s, so it had to be 100/ 110 degrees in the mow.   We never gave it a second thought.   It was just a part of getting the crops in.  Working in those conditions shaped my attitude about the weather.

When our kids were still home, out of financial need, we started a small commercial cleaning business on the side. The older ones went with us in the evening and weekends as we emptied trash cans, scrubbed toilets, vacuumed and mopped the floors.  I wished we could do more to incorporate the chores of my youth, but we were living in town and a dairy cow was not an option….

Final story.  Look at that picture of my dad milking again.  See that fuzzy cat on the left getting  milk straight from the cow?    Come to find out, she (Fuzzy)  was a prize winning show cat. Had blue ribbons to prove it.   She used to hang around the lumberyard where my dad worked.  He thought she was a stray, so he took pity on her and brought her home. Year later, lady who lived close to the lumberyard happened to be visiting our farm, noticed the cat and mentioned she used to have a cat like that.  We never let on.

If you were a cat, would you rather spend your days  eating dry cat food or having a front row seat by the family cow?

You can take the boy (or girl) off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy (or girl)… thinking too about my fellow farm kid, MJ as I wrote this post.

You get extra credit if you can tell me the breed of the milk cow in that photo.

Later! DM

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Update 12 hours later…just got home.  Lots of great help. Went without a hitch.  Here are a couple of action photos:

Dad loading up the family picture 

The moving crew

 

Bikers

I got to get this out…

Yesterday afternoon, I ran to town to meet  someone who was going to buy four pieces of cast iron cookware we had listed. When I got to the end of our gravel road,  a dozen crotch rockets flew past, like  a swarm of angry bees.  Another half a dozen  bikers passed me once I got on the road.  They had to be going 80 to 100 MPH, (or more)

My first thought was, I hope those guys know there is a 70 MPH corner coming up two miles ahead.   

One of the bikes had a girl riding passenger.

A dozen other thoughts flashed through my mind.

 

My dad talks about the human brain not  maturing until  the age of 25.  Watching 18 bikes weaving in and out of heavy 2 lane traffic going 20 (to 50?) miles above the speed limit might be an example of that.

As I approached the corner a minute later,  I could see something was amiss.  A car in the North bound lane had pulled over and was flashing their lights in my direction.  (translation = SLOW DOWN)

Several bikes had pulled over, people walking on the shoulder.

Debris in the ditch.

Traffic was moving fast and thick, did not seem wise for me to stop, so I continued on to my appointment.

30 minutes later  on my return trip, there were still 2 ambulances, and multiple law enforcement vehicles on the scene.

There was nothing on our 10 PM local news channel  last night about the accident or again this morning,  so I think someone got very, very lucky.

DM

 

 

Speak Life

Quick story from this morning….

Number one son and I were in Muscatine the last couple of days doing repairs on a turn of the century house.  Place had been converted into a group home and was in need of some TLC.   First thing that struck me when we got to the job was the  neighborhood.  Lots of large older homes, that in their day would have been something to see.  Second thing that struck me was the couple next door. The two of them, ( I’m guessing, mid 70’s) were hard at it.  She had a dew-rag on her head, and he had one of those floppy safari hats.   Their house sat back further from the street than the rest of the houses on the block and it  (the house) looked like it could be on the cover of a magazine.  A part of me wanted to tell them how nice their place looked, but I didn’t want to come across as some nut-case, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

This morning on the way back to Muscatine, the guy on the radio was talking about the power of our words.  Our words have the power to  build up, and tear down, and to look for opportunities to encourage.

So, that little thought was rolling around in my head  as I was finishing up.  I spotted the neighbor lady bringing a garbage can out to the street, so I thought, what the heck. I told her good morning.   Then I told her  how much I had admired the way they kept their place up.  She in turn complimented me on how nice the newly painted front and back porch looked on the house we were working on.  We  talked for 30 seconds, but that’s all it took.

That little ditty they taught you when you were a kid about “sticks and stones can break your bones, but word can never harm you.”

That’s a bunch of BS.  (BS stands for Bad Stuff in German.)

I have a  friend who will occasionally say to me “Speak life.” 

I like it.

I think it’s a spin off from the phrase “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.”

Do I do this perfectly?  Nada.

Especially at home.

Well, I better call it a day. Later! DM

 

 

Funeral Day

I should be in bed.

Can’t sleep.

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Went to a funeral visitation today.

Buried one of our pet cats yesterday.    Two tangible reminders in one week  to the  fragility of life.

I will miss her. (The cat)

She was feral.

We called her “Miss Kitty”.

Pretty sure she was abused before  she showed up at our door.  Never, really trusted us.
But she did have a special relationship with Libby. The two of them would snuggle together in the winter.

 

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Funerals, funeral visitations, receiving lines, that whole flurry of activity that comes with a death.   Mom and I were talking about all that stuff again recently.  She agreed with me when I said the less you say the better.  Hugs, warm handshakes, look the family in the eye…but no empty cliches!

That approach has served me well the last several times.

The month my father-in-law died, my favorite grandma also died, then a few weeks later, a third person.  We were emotionally numb.  I can still remember our friends Leslie and Mel, Chris and Kelly,  sitting in the foyer of the funeral home just hanging around.  They knew this was our 3rd trip to the funeral home in a month.  Just their presence there was enough.

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Few years ago, when we were more  involved hosting concerts, Beth Wood a singer/ songwriter stayed with us one weekend.  She had just released her album  Beachcombers Daughter.   One of my favorite songs on that album was called Funeral Day.

It goes  like this:

We were laughing, it was funeral day
I guess it might seem strange that we’d behave that way
It was just our bodies craving levity,
My grief a heavy blanket weighing down on me
So we laughed until the sun went down
Trading stories, passing the bottle around
Recalling all the good times we had
It didn’t seem so sad

It all started at the parlor doors
Cousin Henry’s kid tripped on an extension chord
We busted out, what else could we do?
Hell, I knew that you were up there crackin’ up, too
So we laughed until the preacher came in
Then we settled down and we listened to him
Staring at your photograph

It didn’t seem so sad

Well we got some dirty looks from the old blue-hair crowd
But with all due respect, I think we did you proud
By laughing out loud

…it’s just a simple story, we’re here and then we’re gone

So I laugh remembering that day
How we carried on and how it washed our tears away
I’m smiling and I’m looking back
It doesn’t seem so sad.

Sending this one out to all of you that are missing someone.

Whether it’s been just a few weeks or 20 years.

DM

 

Hacked

My dear friend Chris (who occasionally reads this blog…Hi Chris!) gave me the ultimate compliment yesterday…he noticed “zen like” qualities in my life.  I looked up the word Zen  just to see what he might  be seeing….

Webster defines  zen as : a state of calm attentiveness in which one’s actions are guided by intuition rather than by conscious effort.  

A short story of  my Zen like reaction to having been recently hacked….

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Wife received a call three weeks ago from our credit card company.  Someone had  switched our mailing address to Florida, was that us? The representative on the phone said,  I (DM)  needed to get back to them. (I was taking @ nap at the time).  The number they left did not correspond to the number on the back of our credit card, so I called the one on our credit card instead…it is really hard to know who to trust anymore… Was the call, a scam itself? 

When I finally got through to customer service,  I could not answer enough of the security questions to their satisfaction..(questions like, when I did I open the card?  What were the last several transactions and amounts, etc?)

I don’t carry that sort of stuff around in my short-term memory..heck, I have trouble remembering our kids birthdays sometimes… 🙂

Ron the older man on the other end of the customer service line with a gravelly voice, apologized but said, I would need to physically go into our local bank.

Went the next morning…

Discovered that not only had someone successfully changed our address, they had also apparently gained access to our on-line banking with full access to a lot of stuff.

At one point, there were three bankers in the room, trying to figure out some detail..one of them looked at me and said, “How many bankers does it take to fix this?  (I like her attitude)

Three hours later, I left the bank…Their security division put a freeze (then closure) on all of our banking connected with them.  We were encouraged to start over with new accounts, new card, yada, yada…

So that was still in the process of getting straightened out yesterday when I went out to get the mail…

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In the mail, we received a bank/ credit card statement… as I looked it over, I noticed  there was a $25 rush fee, and the last four digits of a new number at the top of the page..

I picked up the phone, called customer service, again,  explained why I was calling…and then a light bulb went on.

A new card had been issued the same day I was @ the bank, and they had put a rush on it…SENDING IT TO THE ADDRESS IN FLORIDA  of the hacker…PLUS dinging me $25 for  the privilege of doing so.

“They sent the “F”ing  new credit card to the address of the hackers.” 

It came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

I have to be honest.  It felt good.  I used to cuss like a sailor…that dirty habit, has all but become dormant…but not completely.

There is a time to get angry in a zen sort of way.

That’s my story young grasshopper.

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Any of you old enough to remember David Carradine and  the TV series Kung Fu?