Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Bees, Small Businesses & Tractor Distractions

Bees - Legacy Small Business

The State Fair which ends on Labor Day is my cutoff for pulling honey off the hives.  Shortly after the holiday all the goldenrod blossoms which results in poor honey.  Honey is a combination of fructose, sucrose and dextrose and the goldenrod composition results in a product prone to crystallization.  I'm now a week late.  Extraction of honey is much easier when it's about 90 degrees.  Today the high will be 59 degrees.  Any supers pulled off the hive need to go into a warm room for a couple of days.  Attempting to extract cool honey leaves much in the comb and broken comb.  What happened to the second half of August?

Rental Property - Legacy Small Business #2

My wife owned a condo when we were married thirty years ago.  She's never sold it, renting it continuously during that time.  I'm not sure this marriage is going to last.  She says she always enjoyed living there.  On
Monday the owner of the unit below us called to say there was moisture coming into their apartment.  Over  the years there have been quite a few instances of water from above resulting in damage to our unit, some originating from the roof, some from the overflowing tub on the third floor above us.  During a recent touchup of paint I noticed some discoloration.  If this was your house you'd look at it, grab some patching tar and a ladder and deal with it.  This situation involves me, the guy that called, each of our insurance companies, the condo association board, the condo association management company and the condo association insurance company.  It's been raining continuously for two days.  I know it's a pinhole leak around a vent stack on the roof.  It will take another week for the management company to get an inspector, get three estimates, arrange a meeting with the association board and then some time to actually get the work done.  Drip, drip, drip...

Cafe - Small Business #3

The cafe operated (and owned) by my daughter and wife continues to grow.  I put a little time into this but work every day to get fired.  Certainly any minimum wage employee would be much more effective.  My wife tells me that I am worthless there, doing nothing but talking to the customers.  Most of the time I am asking the employees to fill out a complaint form about me.

Real Job(s)

As mentioned I've lost momentum on job pursuit but have had a couple of good leads this week which I will pursue.  It seems that one out of one thousand leads is actually good so I think I'll get a Powerball Lottery ticket first.

Distraction(s)

With much to be done I really have no extra time (that sounds lame) but I am easily distracted.  I'm attempting to spend some time writing each day to get better.  Of course that is cutting into my activity and exercise time which meets I'm going to die sooner and have less time to  get better.  Good blogs really catch my attention, not those that are focused on dancing cats or how to live on $1 a day but those that truly capture the endless challenges and opportunities of life and a few others that are somewhat highbrow or which simply display creative writing and imagery.

For a while I'm been following The Lazy Farmer Blog and to display my distraction problem have included a short clip of me watching his clips.  Did I really have time to work this into my day?

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