Mud Season

So I’m busy doing my day-job this morning from the farm. A steaming cup of joe at my elbow and the sun streaming through the windows.

I’m alternately on the phone or tapping happily at my wireless keyboard.

And I am comfortably attired in my long johns.

This is one of the marvels of modern technology – the advancement of the remote worksite. You see, I could never get away with the long johns in my office as there is a dress code. The code does not make allowances for lounging about in your winter underwear. Although from time to time I have brazenly flaunted the dress code by showing-up in blue jeans. This insubordination generally results in the Director of Operations giving me the hairy eyeball at which point I lock myself in my office to remain hidden from view. Then I sneak out the secret back passage to make my escape.

I have mixed feelings about all of this technology. On one hand if it is snowing furiously I simply stay at home and get my work accomplished. My business partner lives in the boonies so she routinely works from home one day a week and saves a pile of money on gas.

I can work remotely and break-up the routine by gardening or fetching a shotgun and the dog and going for a walk. Just this last fall I did that and returned to work (so to speak) with a freshly killed pheasant.

These are all productivity gains on so many levels.

On the other hand there is the temptation to take your work with you everywhere - all the time. Last night I received an email from a business associate so I called her. I knew where I would find her – at her computer.

What are you doing calling about my email at 8:30 in the evening?

I’m working, I said.

My business partner reminds me that I am incurably incapable of disconnecting.

Sigh.

Anyway, just about the time I have finished the last cup of coffee, the last email and the last call my dog walks over, rests her head on my knee and gives me her hang-dog look with the sad brown eyes.

What is it Girlfriend?

Now I get the insistent nudge.

I briefly ignore her but the nudging continues alternated with a few good head bumps.

Labrador body language is never subtle. This is her polite way of telling me to disconnect. Isn’t it funny how women intuitively know these things?

So I locate my Carhartt work pants. These would be the ones with the big red suspenders. Now the dog is frantically panting and scurrying-about. The pants with the red suspenders usually mean that we’re going to fire-up the four wheeler. In my dog's world the ATV ranks right up there on the list along with hunting, swimming and eating scat.

I throw my tools, a spray bottle of gypsy moth oil, a couple of bottles of water, my Blackberry and a camera in a box on the Polaris and off we go.

47 degrees today and there’s water everywhere.

Mud season has arrived!

After about a mile of walking I’ve completed the pruning of my half of a tree plantation. Oaks and walnuts - and I am pissed. Countless eight-year-old walnuts thrashed to death by deer that rubbed their antlers on them.

Of course, all of this is lost on Girlfriend. She’s been tearing about digging, snuffing, splashing and probably dining upon deer M&Ms when I’m not looking. She’s having a blast. And she is filthy dirty.

Later she doesn’t resist the ritual of hosing-off the mud and a brisk toweling. But she gets a couple of good shakes in spattering me in the process.

I’m glad that mud season only lasts only a couple of months.

Back to work.