What is it about South Dakota?
I remember this from the last time I was here. I wake up so early.
It doesn’t seem to matter what time I go to bed: I could go to bed early, or I could go to bed in the wee hours of the morning. I’m gonna wake up super early, and my brain is gonna kick in, and I’m once it does, I’m done for.
So I’m a bit sleep deprived, and I think that’s what’s been causing me to be tipping over the edge into migraine territory. I haven’t had to take migraine pills for a long time, but I’ve had to take him the last couple days to stave off the descent into migrainatorial oblivion.
On a positive note, the migraine pills are keeping the symptoms at bay. 🙏¹
On another positive note, I had another really good day with my dailies. 🎉
🙏²
I even managed to do some physical therapy exercises today! 🥳
And now I remember why I’ve had such a hard time doing the exercises in the past. 🙃
They take so long. 😶
Not only that, but they make my symptoms worse. Funny, some of the recommended exercises are ones that I want to say I’ve been told in the past not to do because of the particular spine issues that I have.
🤔
Generally, the recommendation is to avoid exercises that make symptoms worse.
But that’s pretty much all the exercises. 😶
Oh! When I got to the second exercise in the therapy list, I noticed that the written instructions didn’t match the images. The written instructions described being on your hands and knees dropping your low back toward the floor, whereas the pictured instructions show an image of someone with their back arched about as far as you can arch it up.
So… which one do they want me to go? Both the arched back and the dropped lower back are physical therapy exercises…
🤷
There’s not really any way to know which of the two they want me to do, so I sent the doctor’s office an email with pictures of the written text and the instructional image.
Not much I can do about it until I hear back from them. Oh well. No biggie.
I spent some time in uplifting gospel stuff. I also actually got a catch-up journal entry written. I figured Hans was probably going to sleep in after an exhausting week, So I hung out in Rover for a good long time before finally coming into the trailer.
I ate breakfast and worked on my file sorting project while Hans worked on getting receipts for work that contractors have done thus far on the house.
After a good little while trying to organize my files, Hans and I headed outside to get going on fixing the horse fence. The ailing electric fence finally hit its last leg, sometimes working and sometimes not.
Over time, the continual electric pulse damaged the little thin wires that run through the whole fence, braking the connection and shorting out.
That’s no bueno.
So we got to work replacing damaged components and stretching loosened portions of the fence.
At first, given the efforts that I had made the other day, I thought there were only a few places that needed repair, but it turned out that there were a whole bunch of them. In some places, we needed to replace the connecting brackets. In others, we needed to replace the top fence ribbon. In some places we needed to replace both the brackets and the ribbon, and in several places, we simply needed to stretch the loosened ribbon.
It was a lot of work, even for two of us. I think it probably took us at least a few hours? Maybe three to five?
After we thought we were done, Hans went around testing to make sure the 10,000 plus volts was getting everywhere it needed to go, and he found a spot that still needed to be repaired.
Unfortunately, it was one of the portions of the fence that keeps the horses from over grazing the fields, but with the top ribbon down for repair, the horses were eyeing jumping over the shorter fence into the field.
So I put bridles on both horses and crossed my fingers that I would be able to keep control of them both at the same time outside the fence.
Gratefully, I was able. 🙏³
I don’t know how long I wandered around with the horses letting them snack on young grass outside their normal paddock, but I would guess it was probably somewhere around 30 to 45 minutes?
Eventually, Hans was able to get that last section of fence repaired. He ended up splitting an enormously long section into two sections, which was good, because there is an entire line of fence that’s currently not electrified at all.
Anyway, Hans heated up some chicken noodle soup for dinner, which I gratefully ate 🙏⁴, and then I hung out in my van for a little while eating hot chili beans and cheese and downing a couple migraine pills.
I’m grateful for migraine pills. 🙏⁵
After dinner, Heather wandered around for a little bit of show and tell, as we walked her through all of the different things we did today to repair the fence.
It was almost dark by that point, so we headed back to the trailer, hanging out, chatting, and laughing, and enjoying each other’s company for the rest of the night.
I was far enough over the edge that I was a bit slap happy, which is kind of fun sometimes. 🙃
But now here I am, 10 minutes before midnight, writing in my journal when I don’t want to.
But that’s how you build real habits. Strong habits.
🤞
I’m missing New Zealand a little bit.
And I’m missing an old friend of mine. Funny, every time I start to get closer to God, I start to think a lot more about her.
Life is funny.
Anyway, between the migraine and the associated exhaustion, and not sleeping enough, I really wanted to just vege out tonight, but I knew that the particular veging that I wanted to do was dangerous for me.
I wanted to watch a movie or a TV show or something, but that’s straight up just bad news for me. Can’t go there.
And I honestly don’t want to go there. Or maybe more accurately written I don’t want to want to go there.
Another day in the books. I don’t think I’m all there right now. I’m distracted a little bit. I’m tired.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
G’night
~ stephen
Lift the World 