They Say...

It's my birthday...I'm gonna have a good time...

We are almost done...3 days left and we are vacationing for almost 3 weeks before we return to do the trees...but for today, it's my birthday and I am going to have the time of my life!

How Did We Ever Live Without It?

For any of you who know me personally, you know that I have always been very up to date technology wise, always knowing all the latest programs, software, hardware and everything in between. I lost most of that drive when we began living this lifestyle, still dabbling in the latest and greatest gadgets, but just not doing it with all the vengeance I use to have. There has always been that deep pitted desire to upgrade to an IPhone, but could never justify the extra cost…well, today is a new day and I am finally in the 21st Century.

For my birthday this year, coming up the end of this month, we decided it was time for me to get the IPhone. We were able to pick it up for under $100, with a 2 year contract. We are never concerned about signing a 2 year contract with Verizon, since they have and will always have the best service amongst all the others.

Now the new issue is how can we get one for Jerry? His contract is not up until December of 2012 and without it, we would have to pay over $600 for his phone…not happening. Since my computer crapped out and I took over his, we have been planning to get him a new one once we leave California. Did I mention the taxes here? OMG…We paid an extra $45 in taxes on our phone since it was delivered to a California address. Now, we think with as little as he uses his computer, we could get by with getting him an IPhone for him to check the few websites he actually visits…still mulling this over and since we will be out of California in January, we will get him his IPhone then.

As for our experience at the pumpkin patch, well we are in the single digits of days left until we are done with it. We are so tired of complaining…doesn’t change a thing and is so unproductive and now that there are only days left, we need to get productive and make the best out of this entire situation. We grew a “pair” and have begun to very nicely and firmly get our point across to some of these nincompoops. We also know that it is not the long hours, is not the hard work, it is the people…the rude, inconsiderate people that insist on being idiots. Well, that is there problem and we will no longer allow their stupidity to control our happiness, after all you can’t fix stupid.

We have looked into other seasonal types of work, but the money keeps us coming back to doing this. There are a few others that we have considered and will once again look into them. As far as future pumpkin and Christmas tree lots, we love the sales part we just do not like the type that cater to the kids with all the entertainment. It is too much for just Jerry and I to do on our own, we may also like it if it were a bigger operation and we had help. We will continue to look into new adventures for next season, but for this season, we will continue with what we have and look into other possibilities for next year.

We have looked into the gatekeeping, mostly in Texas and the pay, even though many say is great, for us it is not a good fit. Working 12 hour shifts is enough, being on duty for 24/7 for $125 for both of us calculates terribly for us. We understand that you are not working 24 hours a day but if somebody needs something at no oclock in the morning…guess who needs to take care of them with a smile.

We also looked into Amazon, and we make more in less time working these lots than we would working months at Amazon…and, the weather at the locations is frightful. We love the warm sunny days of being out west.

Thank you for all your comments and support during this time for us. Life always seems to give us lessons, the sooner we learn from them, the sooner we can move forward. We are really digging deep and trying not to allow others to dictate how we manage and feel about ourselves. Life is just way too short to allow others to control our feelings.

For more photos, check out our Picasa Web Albums.

My Venting Is Out of Control!

What the hell is wrong with some people?

This entitlement era has to end…it is not just the young, but the middle age as well as the elderly.

We knew it was hard work managing a Pumpkin Patch, the difference being Patch. We not only sell the pumpkins which we LOVE to do, but just doesn’t seem to be top priority to this owner. For some reason he believes that giving everything away for free will bring him business...wrong. We have free popcorn, free pumpkin painting, free admission, free petting zoo, free movies …the list goes on and on. He feels if we give all this away, when the time comes for them to buy their pumpkin they will return to us. But, in the meantime to make it all balance out, our pumpkin prices are exuberant. Many of these freebie takers say the same thing, when it comes time to purchase their pumpkins they will go down to the grocery store where they can pick one up at a fraction of our price. We continue to tell ourselves that it is not our business, it is his and we only work for him so we do it the way he wants it done.

It is just so hard for us to understand how there are so many idiots out here who believe that it is okay to allow their children to destroy merchandise and not give a damn about the property. It is all about them. How rude is it that we work here 12 hours per day with no breaks or time for lunch and it never fails whenever we try to grab something to eat, some idiot will come up and ask us if they can go into the petting zoo. I smile and say they are at lunch at this moment and it will be just a while longer. I tell them to look around and gather their purchases and we will be right there just as soon as we finish our sandwiches. They very bluntly state that they are not here to purchase a pumpkin, they are only here to see the animals. Dah!

We are just so irritated at how much needless work that has to be done due to people’s stupidity. Where else does anyone work where when a family leaves the lot, we have to go around and pick up behind them? They allow their children to pick up and move every item, including huge pumpkins that then get dropped…

Do you know what happens to those pumpkins? Days later we are shoveling them up and tossing them in the trash.

We have displays throughout of all the different pumpkins and items we have for sale and people just allow their kids to walk on them, crawl on them, roll them around and pick up and drop or even better some throw them.

Kids are not supervised at all…too many parents bring them here thinking it is a park and allow them to just run amuck…climbing all over the pumpkins, even after us taking so much time building them a fort and pumpkin/hay horses for them to climb on. We are both tired of having to tell every parent not to allow their children to jump, walk, sit, or roll all over the pumpkins. Doesn’t anybody have and use any common sense any longer? These are edible items that we are trying to sell, but instead we end up trashing more than we sell.

Why must we have to repeat ourselves several times regarding things that should be obvious? Because there are too many self-absorbed people that feel the rules do not apply to them. Most of our rules are not rules, they are common sense, but too many people take it as if we are picking on them, or as some stated that we are being aggressive by asking them to please keep their children off of the pumpkins.

Then…don’t get me started about the petting zoo! We have hundreds, I kid you not…hundreds of people daily and thousands over the weekend coming through the patch and we have to limit the time that they spend inside the petting zoo and ask that they only go in once a visit, so that others may have a turn. Of course, they all feel that it does not apply to them, so we have to remind them and then they get all Diva like and play the it’s all about me card.

Some people are just so dense!

Last week we had this couple come in during a very busy time with two young children. Each child ran in and grabbed wagons that are supposed to be used for purchases. There were only a few wagons left for buyers, plus the kids had already run over several of our displays and a few people within feet of grabbing the wagons. At this point, I very calmly asked them to limit to one wagon and to make sure they supervise the kids if they pull the wagon, they rolled their eyes but went about their business.

Later, this same family went into the petting zoo, rules explained to all that there is no running or screaming. The rest of the group complied, but almost immediately, their child was screeching and running around, we firmly asked several times for this mother to please control her daughter or we would have to ask them to leave the animal area. It continued and the animals were getting rangy, so we asked her to leave. They huffed out of here as if we just committed some sort of crime against them. A few days later we, as we often do, we checked into any reviews about the patch and found a very different view on what happened. Needless to say, they did not say anything nice about us or the lot, but we have learned that you can’t and won’t be able to please everyone. If we have pissed off a few families, then so be it, because when it comes to customer service we are really good at it, so the hundreds of great people who compliment us all the time is worth a few sore losers.

Good news…only 2 more weeks of the pumpkin patch…we are so looking forward to doing the Christmas Tree sales, they are so much easier since it is all about selling, not entertaining.

For more photos, check out our Picasa Web Albums.

This & That

This Monarch Butterfly flew into our Pumpkin Patch a few days ago, but my camera was in the house and it had flown away before I could get a photo. Then we found it, dead amongst our pumpkins, still beautiful and so much easier to photograph.



Weekdays are our days to rest up and recoup from the very busy weekends, but instead it has been a very busy week too. The sales still never match up to the amount of traffic that comes through the Pumpkin Patch visiting the Petting Zoo and just browsing but the good news is, 2 weekends down and only 3 more to go!


There comes a time in our lives when we have to just choose to do what we love and love what we do. That my friends has always been for us to travel, write, take photos and share them all with our readers, still trying to find the way to balance it all out to where we can make it work financially for us. We just can’t seem to give up on the idea.

We have never made any wise investment choices, so what we have is what you see. Our bank balance is always low and no savings to even lean on, but we make it through and for the most part, we are fine with it all. But, then there are moments like right now that we get a bit discouraged. Our rig needs some TLC that will take some bucks, and we are really tired of taking jobs we are not happy with, but the money looks good. We would love to be able to make a decision that is not based on our finances, but instead on our love and passion for it.

Just doing some ranting…we usually just say this to one another but it just doesn’t seem to be enough for us right now, we need to get it further off of us and out into the Universe so it does not continue to fester within our souls.

We have realized that we love to sell, put us in a Pumpkin Patch to sell and we could, we just do not like all the “free” stuff this particular company gives away, just does not balance out and this year, being our 4th year with him, he seems to be lacking with taking care of our needs. We had the lot up and running and making him money as scheduled, and our needs are still much less desirable then we have been promised or received in the past.

We have always had 30amp electrical service, this year it is 20amp and plugged into an outlet hundreds of feet away, we have low voltage which can and just might ruin some of our electronics in our rig. It has been two weeks and he continues to say he will fix it by doing this or that and nothing gets done, and even if he fixes it, it will only be 20amp…Not happy! Then our water situation is terrible, the pressure is so low it is almost a dribble, but we fixed that by filling up our fresh water tank and then use our pump which gives us adequate pressure. Now our dumping situation, we are supposed to be dumped weekly when the port-a-potty gets serviced…well…he forgot to set it up and we had to go 12 days without it being done…we are usually pushing it on 7 days since our tanks are small. Needless to say, we began to smell mighty ripe towards the end of that situation…Again…NOT Happy!

We love working for Scootaround, all the traveling and even though many of the jobs includes some long hours, we still find it fun and enjoyable. Unfortunately, the jobs do not always align well together enough to make it all work and there are months of no work at all. We will continue to do all we can with them though since we really do enjoy the work and hope it all once again falls into place.

As far as other types of work that we enjoy, just does not seem to be panning out. We love customer service type work, we never thought we were much of sales people, but we are learning that we are, if it is something we believe in. We tried to sell photos from which they took from the helicopters…not something we believe in, so we were not good at it, plus it was cold sales. But, put us in a booth at shows and wow, we sizzle.

A few years ago, we looked into managing a seasonal Hickory Farms booth but we ran into difficulties getting it all arranged and now for the past few years without a tow vehicle, we knew it wouldn’t work. But, we are now looking at getting another tow vehicle…if anyone knows of an older Jeep Wrangler for sale, please let us know. We are looking to purchase one just as soon as we can find a good deal.

Hopefully, my ranting will allow for the yucky stuff to exit and the good stuff to enter…otherwise, we may be venting even more…at least for the next 18 days, until this lot closes for the season.

We continue to add photos from our Pumpkin Patch adventure, check out our Picasa Web Albums.

Interviewed

Shane, owner of nationalrvparks.com asked if he could interview us and publish it on his website. We always like assisting folks that are starting out in new adventures. Check out our interview on their website.


We are still in Walnut Creek tending to all of the animals and pumpkins. We are running out of energy and it seems time is standing still, but we are down to almost three weeks before we close up this adventure.



We keep trying to find things to keep our spirits up, we look forward to the few weeks off in between the two lots and we are going to have a blast exploring in San Diego. It was going to be our honeymoon place, but we chose to get our home instead so 14 years later we will enjoy it as if it were our honeymoon.

We have been busy building scarecrows and painted heads for them.



We took more photos of the pumpkins and our animals and uploaded them to our Picasa Web Albums, be sure to check them out.

Seriously…Where Has All the Time Gone?

We left the east…headed west. Had a few play days then headed to Los Angeles to work the AARP show and now we are working at a Pumpkin Patch.

The AARP Convention in Los Angeles was loads of fun. Those were definitely some long days, 3 @ 15+ days and 2 under 12 hours. Working with Scootaround is always so nice for us, we love the work and most of the people are great. We had a few angry people, but those type of people are usually so unhappy that we end up feeling feel sorry for them. To live their entire lives being so angry, unhappy, sad or fed up is just not the way we choose to live ours.




We had never attended an AARP Convention, and we have to admit it was eventful. There was so much to do with all the seminars, vendors and of course the entertainment they had scheduled. If you haven’t been to one, check it out the next time it is in an area you want to visit, next year they will be in New Orleans and some of the entertainment sounds like a good time.

Once we were done, we took an extra day driving to do the pumpkins, headed straight for the ocean from LA and leisurely drove along it for as much as we could. What a fabulous drive!



Once we arrived at the coast was fabulous, but leaving LA getting there was a nightmare. It took us over 2 hours on a Sunday morning, all due to some sort of marathon that was going on that detoured traffic so much we ended up going miles out of our way only to have to go more miles to get to the roads we needed to take all in lots of traffic.


Then we arrived at the pumpkin patch…didn’t think we would return, and we actually didn’t return to the same lot. This one is located in Walnut Creek, California and it reminds us of a boutique. Very small and quant, and to top it off the people so far have been marvelous. They bring in the kids, take photos, check out the animals and they actually buy pumpkins. Not like last year when all they did was come in for whatever they could get for free. This is nice and even though the hours are long, the weather has been wet and chilly, we are enjoying our time here.






These are just a few of our photos of the Pumpkin Patch, for more photos, check out our Picasa Web Albums, we will be adding more photos as the days go by.