(written on the 25th and 26th)
With the fan, it was a pretty normal night’s sleep last night. I recharged my jump box before going to bed, and I slept pretty comfortably. 🙂
In fact, I think I slept maybe a little better than normal!
🥳
I like this little mattress that came with ET!
I think with the fan blowing on me, I was comfortable, temperature wise without a blanket, maybe a tad warm at first. By first light, I actually needed to put a small blanket over me.
It’s still in the sun as the sun is going down, but it was a heck of a lot better than the previous night. In fact, night number two in Rover was pretty darn good!
🥳
Monday dawned beastly hot. I was up and going and working on moving stuff by I think eight something or nine something this morning, and it was already brutally, suffocatingly hot.
Yuck.
Sweat soaking me.
The first thing I did, of course, was start a fire in the burn barrel, because of course it wasn’t hot enough already without tending a fire. 🙃
With the burn barrel loaded up and going, I hooked up the trailer and drove up to Steve’s house (formerly our house) to continue moving stuff.
Yes, I’m still moving stuff. 😅
I grabbed the swing that was on the back porch and A bunch of other stuff. I forget what the other stuff was that I grabbed. What I do remember, though, is that as I was coming down the hill driving over to the deck to drop the swing, I saw black smoke billowing up from where the burn barrel was.
😶
Ummm… black smoke doesn’t come from a burn barrel.
😬
So I drove over to the burn barrel and found that something that I had inside the burn barrel had fallen out and had caught the grass on fire which had caught a tire on fire which caught more stuff on fire.
🔥🚒
By the time I got there, a whole bunch of buckets had burned up and melted, a brand new storage bin full of spices and what not for the food storage barn had gone up, a garden hose, parts for the lawn mower, etc.
My pickup truck, parked nearby, survived, but with a melted tail light.
😬
Yeah… oops. 😅
I got the fire under control, moving things out of the path that were in the path, and got it to basically be just a burn pile size circle.
As I actually tended the fire this go round, I started tearing out a big cluster of blackberry bushes and a whole bunch of weeds and tree saplings and what not that had completely overrun the area next to the greenhouse, dropping the vegetation that I pulled and cut out into the burn pile.
It was beastly hot.
I think maybe four times throughout the day, I went down to the creek, stripped off my clothes, and cooled off, putting on clean clothes each time.
Lots of crawdads. 😊
Knowing that it was going to be beastly hot, cooking my portable motel all day, I decided I wanted to clear a little spot where I could park the van in the shade during the day. So I jumped on the lawn mower, started it up, went to drive forward, and it wouldn’t move.
Erg.
Usually, that means that the belt has come off one of the pulleys, So I crawled dan and looked underneath and found that One of the pulleys was actually busted.
Lovely.
So I got my tools and tried and tried to get the pulley off, trying this tool, and then that tool, and then that tool, and finally getting it off with the original tool (A box end wrench).
I had already cooled off once at this point, maybe twice, and for some stupid reason, I decided not to put my shirt back on right away.
That choice would come back to haunt me.
Any tools sitting in the sun got so hot that they burned me just touching them.
How on Earth was I a mechanic for 7 years working out in this weather? Clearly I’m getting less resilient with age. 😆
Gratefully, The broken part was one I actually had a spare of that wasn’t also burned with the other parts that got burned.
🥳
So I was able to get the lawn mower fixed just as the sun was starting to heat up my van. So I mowed a spot for the van between two trees, right at the forest’s edge, parked to the van, and then headed back out to work.
I kept clearing the weeds and what not next to the greenhouse. I started pulling out trusses that had been laid on the ground many years ago that had since been surrounded by growth–trees, weeds, etc–growing around, in, through…
I grabbed a chain, and pulled them out, one by one, realizing i think maybe too late that I was messing with poison ivy.
Good gravy, does the Poison ivy never end?!?! 😆
New poison ivy patches on my skin every day. New tick bites every day. Chigger bites.
I’m a walking histamine reaction. 🙃
The recognition of more poison ivy added another trip to the creek and another creek bath.
Not that I mind. 🙃
Managed to get myself stung by a bee. I think it was a sweat bee that landed on my ankle just as I put my sock on, so it got trapped under my sock.
😶
I moved the burn pile contents to another burn pile, but in the process, I accidentally spread nails and screws and tire metal all over that part of the field.
😬
Tire punctures and tetanus shots waiting to happen.
So, I got down on my hands and knees and scoured the ground, burn pile to burn pile, picking up probably 15-20 nails/screws.
With my shirt still off.
😬
I didn’t think I was out there with my shirt off that long, but during my next trip to the creek, I noticed I was a tad burnt.
I went and loaded up the trailer again with all the stuff that was left in the driveway at Steve’s house, and I parked it up by the barn.
I hung out with Jim and family for a bit, helped them unload the trailer, and then helped them load up and stack the hay that Jim had cut and baled.
After we did all that, I went back to Jim’s, where the extent of my lobsterness was made clear.
😬
I was badly burnt, maybe the worst burn of my life. 😬
Steph gave me some aloe, applying it on my back for me, and I left. I jumped in my Civic, which has nice cold AC, and I drive to the neighborhood market in Pea Ridge, bought more aloe, and sat in the car, backwards, with the AC blowing on my back.
I reapplied the aloe goo probably 15 times before driving home, parking my little van in my new spot, lathering myself up one more time, turning the little fan on and pointing it down at my back.
Why do I ever think it’s a good idea to take my shirt off while I’m working out in the sun. 🙃
This happens every single time I do. 😆
Oh well, I guess somebody’s got to keep the dermatologists in business. 🙃
Oh! My mother is slightly in trouble with me. She got bitten by a brown recluse spider at the new house they are staying in. She made it 18 years in Haven Hill House, but after only 2 days, she gets bitten in the new place.
That’s not why she’s in trouble with me. She’s in trouble with me because she got bitten and went to the ER all by herself and never told anybody.
Mom!!!
🙃
She’s not really in trouble, but next time (hint hint), she’s going to let her son know when it happens, not the next morning after she’s had zero sleep and is on her way to be the girls camp nurse.
So… yeah. 🙃
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 