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  • From: "Dylan Ford" <dford@suffolk.lib.ny.us>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] changing jobs - fruit interests
  • Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 10:37:19 -0400

Dear Rob,
I would like to make one small cautionary point for your
consideration...it has been my experience that one should think very
carefully about making one's avocation one's vocation. Many things that I
enjoyed doing stopped being enjoyable at all when I began doing them for a
living.
This obviously does not apply to everyone, as many of the folks who
offer their expertise on this list manage to do both. But I bet all of them
went through a difficult time of learning how to not let the business-end
suck all of the juice out of the pleasure-end. I wonder if any part of your
loss of interest in what you teach could be traced to doing it as a job,
rather than just for the fun of discovery.
Also, I assume that as a teacher you get lots of days and your
summers off, that there isn't as lot of heavy lifting, and that you have
some kind of retirement options. It has been my experience that people who
work in horticultural fields don't hardly get any time off, are at the mercy
of weather and luck and other unpredictables and work long and hard to just
squeak by.
I would get more land while you decide. It sounds like your interest
has outgrown your quarter acre. At any rate, best of luck. dylan

"Civilization is at a crossroads. On road leads to
misery and devastation, the other to total destruction. We must
choose carefully."
- Woody Allen




> Hello all,
>
> This may be odd place to talk about this, and I dont
> know if anyone can really offer me any real advice
> about this, but I am not sure where to go.
>
> I am pretty new a fruit culture, but I am finding it
> really interesting...more interesting than what I am
> doing now.
>
> Let me back-up a bit.
> I am about 36 years old and I am working at Spelman
> College and lab tech and teacher of Computer Graphics.
>
> It's a nice job with pretty good perks, but I am not
> as interested in computers as I once was. For a while
> now, I have been just floating along with no real
> interest in anything. I bought my first house about 6
> years ago with 1/4 acre lot. I had no interest in
> plants at all then (which is why I got the small lot),
> but with constant prodding of the guy next door to
> keep my lawn cut, the issue of yardwork was forced
> upon me. After 2 years of mowing and cutting hedges, I
> begin to tell people that "grass does not put food on
> the table, so why am I spending so much time with
> it!". I thought about what I said and it clicked. If I
> am going to work in the yard, it needs to be something
> I enjoy. Suddenly, I thought fruit trees! Why not! So
> I started and haven't stopped yet. Now most of my free
> time I am reading books and web pages and planting
> anything and everything in the yard. I have planted
> many trees and bushes. I have met many wonderful
> people who have encouraged me. Most of them on this
> list! I have learned more that I have ever wanted to
> know about fruit culture and I am still a novice. I
> have rooted my first cutting last year and budded my
> first tree this spring. I seem to be getting deeper
> and deeper in to the hobby with no way out. :)
>
> Today I see a crossroad coming and I am not sure of
> what to do. Do I keep this as just a hobby (and get
> buy more land) or do I make it really work for me. I
> have no formal training in horticulture. Do I go back
> to school, and if so what do I do when I get out? Will
> this be a fruit thing be just a passing fancy, or will
> I start breeding my own cultivars.
>
> I know, these are questions I need answer myself, but
> I always found it good to hear for others about their
> journeys and what they do.
>
> Anyone care to share?
>
>
> =====
> --------------------------------------------
> Zone 7b Atlanta, GA
>
> Atlanta Fruits Club
www.groups.yahoo.com/atlanta_fruits
> North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX) www.NAFEX.org
> Southern Fruit Federation (SFF) www.NAFEX.org/SFF
> Southeastern Palm and Exotic Plant Society (SPEPS) www.SPEPS.net
>
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