chapter 312

Retiree

5/5/2013

grass is always greener

It was many sports cars years ago when I stored my Porsche in Jeff's old dairy barn for the winter. Fast forward a few decades - now Jeff stores his own Porsche in his garage. I say storage because he's had it several years but doesn't seem to really get around to driving it. Kind of prefers to putter with it, changing half shafts etc. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

He has a thing for concrete saws. This is something that might be hard for some to understand, but he loves those things. Sure, he needed one to make some custom cuts on the decorative blocks around his pool. But then he got another, and another, and another.

To step back a bit, this is a story about lifestyles. I worked with Jeff when we were Sanitary Engineers saving the Environment. Job Done. He's been retired a few years so I stopped in on him to see how my bird watching gig compares to what he's been up to.

 Before I turned off the bike I knew the answer without even verbalizing the question. He had been out on the front 40 testing his new zero turning radius Ferris mower (Ebay).

You see he likes acreage, and mowing (for some reason). Size does matter to him.

 But  the Ferris is just the back up plan for trimming. This New Holland tractor with 18 foot gang mower decks does the bulk of the work. I'm thinking that by the time he finishes one mow cycle, it's time to start the next cycle again. This might be an over simplification, but you get the idea.

 No question that you need big horsepower to finish the back 40 all the way to the creek.

 How about a nice industrial size smoker? Surplus from Chili's Restaurant Chain (Ebay) to cook a few wieners for the family.

I don't want to cast a narrow focus on this retiree's life style. There is so much more to it and I was only there for a couple hours. We are planning some sort of group get together for lunch or a Kayak adventure on his creek.

Moral: Everyone does something different in retirement and we all do the same. We follow our passion, we do what we want to do, or what we have to do. We do many things or we do few things. Life is a carnival.

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