I go in bursts on this blog. A few days without posts and then a big burst. I have to fit the time in when I can now and if I’m actually going to write some of my own stuff (rather than just posting snippets from significant news stories), I have to allow even more time.
Today, I’ve got nine news articles stacked up to blog on. I scan for them using RSS Bandit ➡ & ➡ at odd moments during the day and whenever I see one I want to post, I drop a link to it on my desktop and then when I’m ready to blog, I’ve got a stack ready to go.
It’s been busy here at the nursery. It’s still wintry here. I’m not sure I’ve seen a sunny day since I’ve been back. I shot a picture about an hour ago east up the Woods Creek Valley towards the North Cascades Mountains and Stevens Pass to give you the flavor of things here.
Yesterday, we had our first semi-truck of the season deliver here. It’s a procedure we’ve been through many times now. I go down and meet the trucker and drive him up here and show him the layout and how we want him to pull in and position his truck. Then I drop him off and we go out to block the road while he maneuvers the big rig into the nursery. With the trees, we take them off with the big tractor one bucket full at a time and drop them into the parking lot and then, if there are plants in pots in the back of the truck (and there generally are), we have him pull his rig down to the other end of the nursery through the utility gate and we unload them there near the potting shed. When we unload potted stuff, we bring it down on a wooden ramp from the truck in wheel barrows and carts. Sometimes, it can take most of the day to unload a truck and other times, like yesterday, we can get it done around lunch time. It goes quicker if it is mostly trees. Here are a bunch of photos from truck-day. Just place your cursor on top of them and they should explain themselves and to see them bigger, double click them.
We’ve got another truck in next week. Customers are already coming around and things will be getting very busy soon. Sharon closed the gate at 3 PM today and came in and told me that this is probably the last time we’ll close it this early on a Friday until November. It’s exciting and I like it. The days are intense as you juggle 10 things at once all day long and try not to let anything fall through the cracks. Customers and nature all swirling around you and you feel blessed – remembering how it was when you lived in a cubicle and the corporation held your chain and you hoped they wouldn’t yank it <smile>.
Cheers from the Snohomish, my friends.