Yesterday was kind of a blue day for me out here. I needed a Fred fix. Almost six months later and I still find myself needing to call him, or when my phone rings I expect to hear him on the other end.

I sometimes catch myself thinking how unfair it is for Fred's kids to have lost their Dad at their respective ages, and even more harsh, Tj's kids to lose their mother at theirs. I find myself comparing what age my parents were when they lost their parents, they were considerably older. On extremes I look at Riley losing his Mom at twelve, and then I think about how Fred lived his entire life without losing a parent (as did Tj, although she was fourteen years younger than Fred). The closest he came was losing his father-in-law, while Tj was limited to losing grandparents.

I think of Linda and "E" and how it must feel to lose a spouse in mid-life when you think that you will have time to do everything you haven't done.

I also catch myself thinking of how unfair it is that my Mom and Dad buried not just one child, but two in a nineteen day span. I think back to my Mom telling me "It isn't supposed to be like this."

I think back to what I told my Mom, "We don't make the rules".

And I find myself needing to hear that myself.

Be advised, GOD's got some 'splainin' to do in the hereafter!

I think of my Mom telling Rian after Tj had died, "I trust GOD with all my heart and that he knows what he is doing, but I think it is only fair that he knows I am beginning to get pissed off!"

I guess part of what triggered my blue day was learning of a problem yesterday that Fred's kids inherited and they were trying to deal with it. On the one hand it made me think once again how Fred had to feel that he was treading water that was infested with sharks circling and alligators waiting on the shore. On the other hand, I think about how Fred doesn't have to deal with any of that any more. I can't help but wonder if Fred had tossed in the towel if he would still be with us.

Krl has not been feeling well and last evening when I came in she had supper fixings laid out but hadn't begun preparation. I looked over everything and began lighting burners and pre-heating pans. We were having shrimp scampi, with a Mediterranean blend of veggies on a bed of rice, accented with egg rolls.

For those of you that know me, you know that cooking is therapeutic for me.

Krl and I have joked about it that in a prior life we were oriental, but when I made a trek to the freezer to get egg rolls, even I was shocked to see how much oriental food was there!

Actually, I don't know if it is the oriental fare or the rice.

Just don't ask me to eat with chopsticks!

Of course that would be one way to lose weight.

At the jobsite we are sneaking up on fifty thousand bales. Frank and I were talking about it seems as though the numbers are barely moving, but we both know better than watching them daily. We have to hit a happy medium about not looking at the minute but not trying to see the end either. Right now we are concentrating on one thousand bales a day and hopefully being between seventy thousand and seventy five thousand bales processed come the new year.

I am cautiously optimistic that today I will have another truck in. I had summoned it over a week ago and the driver became ill, so they did some shuffling and got me another one here. The truck coming today was supposed to be an extra to pull down the excess seed inventory but with the developments with Luther on truck 15, the new truck will fall into the daily regiment.

I can't win for losing.

Speaking of Luther, he called me yesterday. That was no surprise seeing as it was pay day and his check was out here. Of course he had taken his truck to the yard in Sweetwater on Sunday and left it. He didn't have the guts or the courtesy to talk to me or Pepa but called Rick and told him he was through. When Luther called me yesterday he told me he hadn't checked to see if they had him a truck. I told him it was my understanding that he had quit. His response was that he hadn't if they put him in a different unit. As long as he was running behind Carlos he had no problem, but every time he would run alone he ALWAYS had some kind of problem and there was never anyone who could verify it actually occurred. I talked with Carlos and he told me he was glad Luther was gone because he felt like he was having to drag him everywhere they went and that Luther was always wanting to stop for this or that. I got the idea that Sunday morning Carlos and Luther may have had words and that may have been what tripped Luther's trigger. Carlos and I both are of the opinion that Luther wasn't very work brittle.

I am in hopes we have our "hump day" out of the week already with the seed trucks. It seemed all of them except Carlos had some sort of problem yesterday. Adan was stopped and had a roadside inspection by DOT and had a couple of things to fix. Sammy had to go get tires put on his trailer. Israel had a flat. Cowboy went to the dentist. Jon got a late start which made for a late finish.

On the bale end, it went more smoothly although we did have a couple of glitches. At least we have no bales on the ground, and Jake took a load of motes!

The biggest thing I have to deal with at the moment is checking on an alleged over billing error of $37.50 the GM asked me about. Actually it would surprise me, but I would be more surprised if I didn't find more errors on the under billed side. We just make the best call we can and hope that we are as close as humanly possible. If it is true, $37.50 over thousands of dollars isn't bad.

Outside of that it is stuff like trying to locate some permits that were sent last weekend and trying to find time to schedule service for the forklifts. They had been so coated in mud and gunk that we missed our last scheduled service.

Have a day!

FATHER, abide in me.