Usually we don’t get out to the Christmas tree farm until much later – sometimes right at dark. But the last few years we’ve made it a point to get there before the sun sets.
All that sunshine didn’t stop Madelyn from losing her stuffed kitten somewhere on the lot. We made a trip back to look for it, but no luck. That little orange Beanie Baby was lost in a forest of evergreens.
Then we got a call from the tree farm: they found the kitten.
Guess what will appear in Madelyn’s stocking this Christmas?
I’m always rooting for the contrarian. If you have an idea or system that goes against the norm, I’m almost already on board.
That’s why Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s book, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work, was an instant buy for me. The founders of Basecamp, Jason and David run a successful software company and keep sane about it. No “sprints,” no 60 hour work weeks, no demanding work from their employees on weekends. The key word is calm.
It flies in the face of most of what you hear about the tech world. Everyone from startups to video game companies are working their staff to literal death. But it’s not just tech – plenty of businesses demand too much time and attention from their team members. I see it all the time.
In my younger days, I could handle a 50 or 60 hour week, easily. In fact, when my first company held a lot of community events, I gladly signed up for the overtime, since all that money ended up in my pocket. Now, though, it’s different: I have a family, obligations, and a house to maintain. That’s not to mention hobbies, some leisure time, maintaining friendships, and making progress on projects around the house.
I’m protective of my time. That’s why the ideas behind It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work were so appealing: making projects manageable, not constantly chasing after profit and growth, giving people time to consider big ideas and projects, valuing sleep and self care.
I lived one idea – four day work weeks during the summer – first hand at my first higher education job. There were two summers where we took Fridays off, and what a benefit. Time with my family, long weekends to take little vacations, opportunities to rest up before the craziness of the fall, when the students returned. Taking Fridays off didn’t bankrupt the business, or turn everyone into lazy slobs. It simply was, until August, and then it wasn’t. In most business environments, if you suggested taking Fridays off in the summer, you’d get laughed out of the office.
Like CJ Chilver’s A Lesser Photographer, the book offers some sanity in all the craziness. Where CJ’s book said don’t buy into the photography hype, Jason and David’s book says don’t buy into overworking. Buy, instead, into calm.
It’s contrarian, for good reason. It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work says there’s another way, a different way, worth trying.
“I’m heading to the woods,” I said after lunch. “If I’m not back in a while, it’s been nice working with you all.”
The woods, they asked? Why?
Because. It’s right out back. At work, our headquarters sits in the middle of a beautiful, hilly forest, with little ponds and lakes all around us. I’ve been dying to get into those woods and explore – dying to get out and shoot, period.
No, the weather wasn’t nice, and no, the light wasn’t perfect. But if felt good to get out and tromp through the fallen leaves on a cool autumn day.
Then my Canon battery died, so I had to rely on my iPhone. Not that that matters.
I made it back by lunch hour’s end, a little wet and a lot refreshed.
Out here, where the roads are named after the family farms, we slide into the quiet season.
It’s all warm colors here at Adams Farm: yellows and reds and oranges. A few greens, but mostly the rustic hue of autumn.
The textures are everywhere, from smooth pumpkins and apples to mottled squashes of every different shape and size.
We’re crazy about the foods of autumn. I could live on apples and squash, while the kids transform into sticky hornet magnets with cider and donuts. We wipe our hands of cinnamon and sugar, we feel for the rigid pumpkin stems, and we toss the bumpy buttercup from crate to wagon.
This is what we live for – the texture of the season.
It’s almost like all this is a bit too cool for Jackson.
International mural artists? Tons of people downtown? Beauty where once there was empty brick?
It all happened, thanks to the Bright Walls mural festival, this past week. But really, it started months ago with one of the best marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t go anywhere in town without seeing that sunrise-and-brick logo. The campaign worked, too, because people – both Jackson natives and out-of-towners – showed up in droves, slowing down traffic in an otherwise sleepy downtown.
Maybe it’s obvious, but here, right in front of all of us, was the power of art on display. It was a spectacle, sure, but it was also a reason to celebrate.
This is usually our springtime ritual, heading to the Hobbit Place, grabbing flowers and thinking about landscape decorations.
For this year, we went full autumn: mums, pumpkins, decorative gourds – the whole thing. As a Tolkien fan, I love the greenhouse’s name. As a person who cares about their yard, I appreciate their selection.
Tick tock goes the beat of the year. On and on we slide into fall.
It was about 7:45 p.m. Saturday when I swore for the first time. It wouldn’t be the last.
That first time, it was because Michigan, early on, was looking paltry against Notre Dame, and the weatherman kept interrupting the football game to tell us a thunderstorm was heading toward Jackson.
After that, I swore because a tornado was making a mess of our neighborhood – just 15 minutes later.
The second time I swore was because I watched a giant oak limb fall into our street, snapping the power lines and cutting our electricity. I don’t remember what exactly I said, but it was enough for my wife to spring into action, grabbing the kids and heading to the basement.
After that, it was a blur: torrential rain, downed limbs, no power, giant trees snapped in two, and a little crowd of drenched birds, shivering and frightened, gathered around a spared maple.
With the power gone, we made the best of our quiet night in the house. The next morning, we woke up to a new view of the sky: those majestic oaks that shaded our house were gone, as was a hunk of the magnolia in the back yard. It covered our dining room window, making it feel like we were in the middle of a hedgerow.
We were lucky. Our neighbors got the worst of it, losing most of their front yard trees and a few others – plus it was their power line I watched get cut in two. A block down, a street fell across the street, smashing a Cutlas Sierra. Another oak fell on top of a house, the trunk teetering like a seesaw. Strangely, a block or two in either direction, it looked like no storm had come through at all. Just our luck.
So we spent the next two days cleaning up from the confirmed tornado. Much like some John Mellenkamp song, we were small town people helping our neighbors, chipping in with a rake or a chainsaw when we could.
This pilgrimage to Pentwater, Michigan, is a nearly annual tradition for us. Unlike many Lake Michigan towns on the western side of the state, Pentwater isn’t touristy like cities like South Haven. It’s quieter and smaller here.
We have our usual spots: the fish market, with some of best fish and chips around; the go kart track; the quiet little beach on Lake Michigan; the farmers market; and the Methodist family camp where my wife spent her summers.
This is our Michigan holiday, in a nutshell – along Lake Michigan, enjoying the sunshine and the food and summer before it leaves us again.
