Yuck

Just yuck. One of these days, things will work out and I won't have to go to the plant anymore. I keep that thought firmly in the front of my thoughts to encourage me to keep on trucking on days like today. Because today, when I'd rather be doing errands and enjoying the day and all, we have to work. There've been some breakdowns lately at the plant that have put us all behind schedule, so the whole place has to work today to make it up, otherwise, there's a lot of chicken in the coolers (which are actually kept at near-freezing) that has to be processed in order to avoid the dreaded QA Hold For Bacterial Counts. Once it's butchered, our chicken can only be held in the coolers for two days at most before it is on hold and has to have a number of the birds randomly checked for bacterial count if it is to be run. Since we've had major breakdowns the last two days, and we are not working tomorrow, that means that the stuff from Thursday HAS to be run today or it's on QA Hold, as does the stuff from yesterday, or it would absolutely have to be run Monday. Add in that we can't work past 3AM on second shift in order to avoid USDA fines out the wazoo ($25,000 for every 15 minutes or portion thereof) and to allow the cleanup crew time to wash and sanitize everything properly, it means that yesterday's leftovers might end up on QA Hold. Yeah, this is my life, folks. I love my job, but there are days I could cheerfully just shoot myself.

Good news though. While I see nothing popping up yet in the mini-greenhouses (and I even took the dome off one and checked a cuke seed - not even a root tip yet, bummer), the tomatoes are not dead. The one has a partly open blossom on it! Time for the calcium in the pot, to avoid blossom end rot, and epsom salts. Might try sprinkling a little in the mini-greenhouses, too, to help with germination ... sure can't hurt. I do need to get a beer trap going though, as I found a snail out there the other day. I pulled it off and threw it as far as I could ... apparently Mr. Red-Tailed Hawk was looking for a snack as he swooped down out of the big, blue sky without warning and snapped it up!

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