A month left

Well, it's now September and I have employment for one more month.

It's still fairly fun, too. I mean, I work a ton of hours but there's no commute or errands to run after work, so it's basically just work and then vacation.

This week, I've ridden twice. I'd hoped to increase to about three times a week, so that's where I am now. I'm not sure it will be possible to do more, though.

This week's rides have been fun, though. I went out on Jello Monday and we saw -- actually surprised -- two deer at the river, then we turned the corner and saw Momma Moose and her baby. They ambled off as we rode by.

From there, the weather turned bad and we donned slickers and fought off hail, but still just wandered around. Brose, who's one of the ranglers in this life and a politician in another, was a wild leader. Although we were on property the whole time, we had trouble finding a safe spot to cross the river. He got bogged down several times and we had some spooky horses.

Tuesday was a fun ride, and I rode Newt, who's the one pictured. (Jello is a Palomino.) He's got a really funky gait and I never got used to it. He'd canter for about 12 paces, then trot for three and then canter for six before going into a trot. He had a fast trot -- faster than a lot of canters -- but man, it was tough to switch.

We saw a coyote and some sand cranes on that ride. I probably won't ride again until Saturday because the Wednesday-Friday routines are big in the kitchen.

Our menu is the same weekly, and tonight I am cooking my second turkey. I also did Mexican for lunch. Tomorrow is the pork loin again, and it's also the day the truck comes to unload, hence the full day.

We actually had a long conversation about the workload this morning. The two women are willing to work a ton of hours to get it done, and the guy is a lot more lax. He does what's on the schedule, but anything above and beyond -- like "we're out of crutons and need to make some" -- just bypasses him totally.

Today was his "half day" and apparently there's some confusion as to what that is. The two women assumed it's working 4-5 hours, as our normal schedules are 9-10 hours. But he appeared and then disappeared and then somehow managed to go on another ride.

So there was a discussion about what to do, and we're unsure of the outcome. The thing is, it's the three of us on a team without an on-site boss. There's no chef to run the kitchen and the boss, at this point during the season, is primarily off-site.

My opinion is so long as he's not on the clock, I don't care. I'd just as soon get the hours, and if we're all working a 40-hour base, I don't see how it matters if, say 20 total overtime hours are split 10-10 or 3-17. We're on the same pay scale, so I don't understand how it's a factor.

But we'll see how it plays out. Neither Vivian or myself are particularly confrontational, and, since we're not the guy's boss, we don't really want to be the one to say, "hey bub, we're working our butts off and you're just sitting there stirring soup."

We'll see how it plays out. We've already decided we're making him take the trash out for the rest of the week. The two Dumpsters are full (nauseatingly so, thanks to a dead duck and a spoiled shipment of chicken) -- and apparently the next step, as it's not emptied until Tuesday -- is to don boots and jump up and down on the bags.

Not it.