Curious about a typical day on a small acreage?
Retired life is supposed to be days filled with sunshine, books, and relaxation.
At least that’s the illusion I had when I planned to leave the 8:30 AM to 5:00PM day job as a social worker.
Who am I kidding? How many days did I go in early, stay late, work on-call, travel overnight, and sit in the office making call after call to find a placement for a child?
A difficult career in child welfare, but also rewarding. Thirty years was enough, though, and I headed into retirement.
Some days, I refer to my life now as a second career as a writer. While that’s true, I write both fiction and nonfiction, I also help run this small farm we call home.
Recently was one of those days when nothing quite seemed to fall into place. Actually, there have been several of those days over the past few months.
Making matters worse are the days of dangerously high heat and humidity. That, besides some extended family responsibilities, push outside work to the very early morning hours.
Since one of the riding mowers was in the repair shop for close to a month, we took turns on the one mower that ran. It’s not ideal, but we made it work.
Until one day.
Nearing the end of the mowing session, the belt broke on the deck.
Great. The yard wasn’t finished, our time was limited and now there was no working mower on the property.
“It’s only a belt.” I said to myself. “I can run into town, get the belt on, and the rest of the yard will get mowed before lunch.”
I should have known better.
It took 3 stops and 1 hour to find the right belt. The farm store and our usual repair shop didn’t have the right one in stock. So off to the next town to a John Deere dealer.
Belt in hand, I checked YouTube for instructions. Between that and the diagram on the belt label, it looked easy enough.
Nothing ever goes as smoothly as you hope, but after an hour of labor, interrupted by lunch and managing another commitment, the belt was on and the yard finished.
What started as a serious frustration ended with self-satisfaction at being able to repair the mower.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
Whatever it is, will be a far cry from social work.