Skip to main content

Another gray Saturday on the farm, with unexpected proposal

Last night I had a conversation with my daughter and her boyfriend, both of whom are GPs, and they wanted to go over my test results.  Turns out I was right, although my weight is up my muscle mass is top of the chart for my age group.  On my heart condition, she was less happy.  Before they could recommend surgery to insert a pacemaker they wanted to try changing my physical activities.  Although I work on the farm, it doesn't include any cardio workout.  My daughter suggested either running or climbing.  

I started to laugh because climbing in Norfolk is a bit of a challenge, the place is flat.  My daughter ever the mischievous one pulled out a brochure for an indoor climbing wall about half an hour away.  Guess what is my daughter's boyfriend favourite sport -- bouldering!  They booked a Saturday morning 10 to 11 am slot for both him and me.  The climbing center is only 40 minutes away.  So this morning after a light breakfast (his suggestion) we left for the bouldering centre.

Let's just say that I got a great cardio workout!  I don't know if it was the climbing or the fear of falling, but after an hour I was exhausted.  It calls on different muscles, but it was a riot.  I could easily see myself doing this with my wife.  She is thin and sinewy and I think this will be a great sport for us (we would also be the oldest people there).  The staff were amazing, fitting climbing shoes and the harness, they have a bunch of instructors the place is great.  Although the music was loud, one of the instructors, a pixi weighing less than seven stones told me that on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, there is only muted music.

On the way back Jack (my daughter's boyfriend) did ask "the question".  Of course, I told him yes.  I can reveal all because right before lunch he popped the question.  He was planning on doing it on Christmas Eve but didn't want to detract from Adam and Jilian's big day.  A thoughtful man.  

Both seem to want the wedding to occur when my granddaughter is a little older and can understand and participate in the ceremonies.  I think that's a great idea.  At two she is still confused by Santa and the whole Christmas thing.  She's a girl so by the age of four she will get it!

It was funny because my wife was completely blindsided.  Our daughter walked into the kitchen to "talk to her mother" and was gesticulating like an Italian with her hands.  I was sitting at the kitchen table going over some tax correspondence (I really need an office).  It took about a minute before my wife spotted the engagement ring.  There was laughter, there were tears, they were minute-by-minute replay of the event.

What a year, 2023 has been a special year

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b) ground beef requires process
Post a Comment
Read more

21st century milk parlour

When we first looked at building our farm in 2018, we made a few money-saving decisions, the most important is that we purchased our milk herd from a retiring farmer and we also purchased his milking parlour equipment.  It was the right decision at the time.  The equipment dates from around 2004/05 and was perfectly serviceable, our installers replaced some tubing but otherwise, the milking parlour was in good shape.  It is a mature technology. Now, we are building a brand new milk parlour because our milking cows are moving from the old farm to the new farm.  So we are looking at brand new equipment this time because, after 20 years of daily service, the old cattle parlour's systems need to be replaced.  Fear not it will not be destroyed instead good chunks will end up on Facebook's marketplace and be sold to other farmers for spare parts or expansion of their current systems. All our cattle are chipped, nothing unusual there, we have sensors throughout the farm, and our milki
Post a Comment
Read more

So we sold surplus electricity one time last summer...(Update)

I guess that we will be buying an additional tank for our methane after all.   Over the past few months, we've had several electricity utilities/distributors which operate in our region come to the farm to "inspect our power plant facilities, to ensure they conform to their requirements".  This is entirely my fault.  Last summer we were accumulating too much methane for our tankage capacity, and so instead of selling the excess gas, that would have cost us some money, we (and I mean me) decided to produce excess electricity and sell it to the grid.  Because of all the rules and regulations, we had to specify our overall capacity and timing for the sale of electricity (our capacity is almost 200 Kw) which is a lot but more importantly, it's available 24/7, because it's gas powered.  It should be noted that the two generators are large because we burn methane and smaller generators are difficult to adapt to burn unconventional gas, plus they are advanced and can &qu
Post a Comment
Read more