Having fun when the work is done!

Tricia is recovering from a surgery that she had done and Benjamin has really been stepping up and helping out around the farm.  He's been milking Nellie the goat and feeding the meat birds along with his other chores of feeding the dogs and cats, collecting and taking out the garbage, making sure the water troughs are full, gathering eggs and feeding the quail.  He's been a busy guy and I appreciate his help.

Last night he assisted by being a spotter while I pushed the chicken tractor full of meat birds forward one length so they'll be on fresh grass.  I learned the hard way that these birds aren't smart and if you don't have a spotter while you push the tractor forward, you'll run over and kill them.  It was well past dark as Benjamin and I were walking back to the house for supper when Benjamin turned to me and said, "Dad, it always feels better to do something fun AFTER you've finished doing work."

I had to agree with him.  I like to work and get tasks completed, but as the old saying goes, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."  We try (and need to try harder) to reward ourselves after completing a job. We'll sit down for family movie night once we finish getting stuff done.  We'll play a game or treat ourselves to a snack after we finish chores.

The same thought was instilled in me during my upbringing.  I can remember always enjoying an ice cold Dr. Pepper and a honey bun while sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck at the end of a hard day's work on the farm. During rice harvest, at the end of the day when we'd finish cutting rice, we'd do particularly grueling work by "spreading the bin."  An auger carried the rice from the pit and dumped it in the storage bin, creating a cone.  If not knocked down and spread evenly, when attempting to dry the rice, air flow would travel to the point of least resistance around the sides and the center would never dry and would heat up and ruin the entire bin of rice.

So we'd climb up the side of the bin with large aluminum shovels and jump down into a dark, sweltering, dusty bin full of rice and begin leveling it by shoveling rice from the center and throwing it to the sides until the cone was gone and it was flat.  The heat and humidity in the bin would be almost unbearable.  After what seemed like an eternity, we'd climb out of the bin with our shovels.  Although it would be in the 80's or 90's outside on those August afternoons, it felt like a cool, Spring day in comparison to where we had just been. We'd sit on the top of the bins, dripping with sweat, and then proceed to blow our noses to eliminate black dust boogers from breathing in all the dust.  Sorry, it's not pleasant, but it's true.

We'd then climb down the ladder and have a Dr. Pepper and relax, feeling good about completing a tough job.  Sometimes we would go and jump into a farm pond right behind the bins and allow the cool, albeit muddy water, to reinvigorate us while perch tickled us while they nibbled on our toes.  Ah, the good old days!  Who says you can't work AND have fun?  I see an example of this work/fun balance each and every day as I commute to work.  Between the communities of Welsh and Lacassine, right off of I-10 on the south side of the Interstate I see the following:

Work & Fun

I pulled over yesterday and took a picture or two and I zoomed in below so you can see what I'm talking about:

Ride 'em Cowboy!

The thing you're looking at is a pump jack, a piece of equipment that pumps oil, black gold, Texas tea, out of the ground and into oil storage tanks.  They are a pretty common sight around our neck of the woods.  Look closely, though, at the silhouette and you'll see that an oilfield worker cut the image of a saddle bronc rider out of a piece of plate metal and welded him to the pump jack, making it look like the cowboy was riding a buckin' bronc as the pump jack went up and down.

I'd like to shake the man's hand who did this.  It is a testament to the ability to work AND have a good time. It takes a creative mind, a good sense of humor and a great personality to have a little fun like this on the job. I'll be willing to bet that the gentleman that fabricated this would be just the type of fellow that you'd like to share an ice cold Dr. Pepper with on the tailgate of a pickup truck after a hard day's work.