Saturday morning, 8:34am, checking my email and the message boards, getting ready to do some yard work. Yard work...not my favorite thing, I have been doing it most of my life so you'd think I'd be better at it. At 14 years old I was spending my summers working at a truck farm (1966/1967). After two years of that I spent another two years at the North Oaks Country Club (1968 and 1969) until I left for the Navy. My first job in transportation was working in the traffic department of the Northrup King (seed) Company. With all that gardening and horticulture experience you'd think that today my yard would be the nicest on the block. Wrong!!!
My yard doesn't look very nice for two reasons. Number one is that it takes a tremendous time commitment to have a nice yard. You have to be out there working on it every night. I don't care to do that. Reason number two, it's also a financial commitment. One needs to (a) spend a lot of money on weed killer, fertilizer and landscaping or (b) get a company like Chemlawn to come in and spray your yard. I'd rather put my money in my gas tank than dump it in my yard just so I can keep up with the neighbors.
Nevertheless, I'm going to get busy by 9am trimming, cutting and organizing. I've got a couple bags of leafs for the compost, the usual stuff. It doesn't look bad when it's freshly cut but a close examination would reveal that it could still use a lot of work. I'd rather go racing. Maybe when I retire I'll spend more time in the yard and get it looking better. Then I'll have time to make bird feeders out of coffee cans and have the little propellers in my garden. All that usual stuff that old people do in their yards.
The plan is for Cedar Lake's weekly show tonight. I see the "R" chance is still around, 40% this afternoon and 30% tonight. I better make sure that I bring a trash bag to cover my camera if I get caught in the rain. That's pretty much routine all summer. Rain hits, cover the camera quick, scoop up the lawn chair and camera bag and run for cover. I hope that doesn't happen tonight. I want to get some right side shots using available light and that isn't possible when there's too much cloud cover. Also tonight I've got to try and get some more "head shots" for the track so they can use them in their advertising. I'm trying to get all the Late Model and Modified drivers and I'm about half done. Some drivers have made it a bit of a challenge but I won't get sucked into the local racing politics. All I'm trying to do here is help the track out a little. If anybody doesn't want to cooperate I'll have to use my 300mm zoom lens from a distance and catch them when they're not looking. LOL There's more than one way to get a picture.
I wasn't planning on going to the races last night and was surprised when Dan Plan called and said all the Friday tracks were canceling. It hadn't rained a drop all day and even though it was showing up on the radar the tracks usually try to get the show in anyways. I think if it had been a big traveling series some of them would have raced but tracks will probably be quick to cancel with the high fuel prices. Even if the cars show up they still need a certain number of people in the stands and with these high prices people aren't going to spend their money to attend an obvious rainout. I think the days of hustling to get a weekly show in before the rain hits are pretty much going to be a thing of the past. The margin isn't that good for these tracks on weekly shows anymore, break even or even lose money. It costs money to prepare the track, employees have to be paid, concessions have to be stocked. That's why they're pulling the plug earlier than they used to.
So I hope things go well tonight. Better get busy out in that yard.
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