It's a good harvest, if you don't weaken

Back at the farm and other where-I'm-ats

With a day's notice, I tied up some loose ends in the city before heading down to the farm for harvest. I mainly organized supplies in preparation for seven weeks, or so, away from my family. Days are lengthy, mornings are early, routines are crucial. It's difficult to fit, yet, more into a day that has fifteen working hours. I allot windows and moments to additional focuses. My physical well-being sitting near the top of that list. A hard desire to mount a heavy bag in a renovated barn, hell, a full lift set. Still matless, it would be good to have some type of padded floor to stretch or drill on. As a final prep before leaving, I attend a Monday night class of BJJ. Injuries; agitated knee from twisting and mat burn on ankle from dragging. Heck of a lot more minor than the spring's torn thumb episode, still not fully healed.

My son fights fatigue until 10:30 PM before passing out in his car seat at the request of “Here Comes The Sun”. We get to the farm and I ask him if he wants to sleep in his jean shorts and socks and he excitedly crawls into the sheets. I sit up for a few hours, writing and picking away at mom's mammoth Costco purchase. Dill pickles, havarti cheese, Miss Vicki's chips, trail mix, yogurt, grapes, and watermelon to start. The result is a rough list of intentions to carry me through the harvest season:

Always be writing

Pushups at the thought of pushups

Mindfulness in all actions

Learn the Rosary

Learn about breath-work

Learn about publishing

Meet the sun

Greens and creatine

Always get the shot

Play the guitar

Mobility

I carry a notepad, two pencils and black ink. I am always writing. Greens are a powder, creatine is 5 mg. Always get the shot, especially when there's a literal iPhone in my pocket. Doing 20-40 pushups whenever you think of pushups, gets to be a lot of pushups. Gotta get better at playing that guitar, enough of these Del Barbers and Zachary Luckys fingerpicking circles around me all summer. Mindfulness, breath-work, the Rosary - good for fieldwork. Publishing - good for business. Mobility and meet the sun sure would be enjoyed more with a mat. And a heavy bag. And gloves.

I begin my morning with a combine repair and am designated to baling straw. Lots of getting in and out of a cab, lots of dust and chaff, lots of my work boot rubbing on my ankle's melted skin blister. A day's progression of first loosening my laces, then driving without a boot, then driving without a sock. By dusk, my foot is a puffed mass of hot tight skin. I salt bathe, Polysporin and Band-Aid. I wake, meet the technician opening the morning doors of the Kipling Medical Clinic and am sent to emergency for antibiotics and a tetnus shot. I hop on one foot to get my prescription and back up on a tractor.

Another full day baling and fighting off an infection before a godly thunderstorm relieves us of all fieldwork. My brother's family cowboys for the day, my wife is driving down and I'm sitting with my leg raised, staying the course with antibiotics, and...

*thinks of pushups*

25 pushups.

in the sun with little jack films