(written on the 5th and 6th from notes)
Well, it’s just after midnight, and I’m pretty hammered.
Amazingly, I was able to sleep on my back last night without much pain at all. 🙏 That’s… huge because if I can sleep on my back again, then it’s a lot less likely that I’m going to wake up with a super sore back.
Which I didn’t this morning. 😊
🙏
I got up, listened to some uplifting music, took my pills, and started listening to scriptures.
Good stuff.
After letting Zora out to go to the bathroom, first up on my list was continuing digging out the mighty mullein on the east side of the big rock pile, so I brought the mattock over and got to work. ⛏️
I noticed there was a little baby bunny there (small enough to fit and shelter inside the little 4-inch septic pipes that were lying there).
Cute little thing. 😊
Speaking of pipes, I took the septic pipes from outside and put them in the basement with the other pipes (supposedly, they’re okay with sun exposure, but… I don’t trust plastic in the sun even if it says it’s okay. 🙃) . After moving the pipes, I continued digging out the invasive species (apparently used by frontiers people as toilet paper 🤓) moving on to the massive mullein plants in the area where the garage is supposed to go.
Around that time, one of the neighbors swung by, asking for help with something, and I was able to help, so I did. We chatted for a little bit, and he let me know that mullein is actually medicinal (in addition to being decent as poo paper 🙃).
So I did a little bit of research to see if there were any studies done on it, and there were! Seems like mainly it functions as an anti-inflammatory, and people make teas and whatnot out of the dried leaves.
🤓
Hans started working on cistern stuff, so I went over, and we started war gaming ideas. Each option that we’ve been able to come up with has its pros and cons, so there isn’t a super clear winner right now.
After Hans headed into town to run some errands, I mucked and dragged, worked on filling in a couple of low spots in the driveway with the dirty gravel that was the bottom layer of the big gravel pile I moved yesterday). When I went to fill the tractor with fuel, I caught one of the small, young rabbits pulling a Curly. 😊
I also went in the trailer for a bit and finally managed to convert my autobiographical sketches (on my home page) that were written in the classic WordPress format into the block format.
I preferred the classic format to the block format, hands down, but you can’t use the classic format anymore, at least not on the app, and I don’t write my journal on my laptop. I dictate it (hence the many typos I imagine you get to read that I don’t catch 😅).
Anyway, that’s been on the to-do list for a very long time. Part of me has wanted to get all of the dirty secrets so to speak written online, so that if the things that I do ever put me in the spotlight, it’s already all out there.
From what I understand, there are people out there who think pretty awfully of me, people who think I’m someone I’m not, and people who think I’ve done things that I haven’t and/or with intents that I didn’t have.
Of course, I have had issues and related areas (which I will likely delineate more thoroughly in those little autobiographical sketches). Those issues make it easy for people to make the leap from being the kind of person who does X thing to being the kind of person who will do or has done Y thing.
I can’t do anything about the “X” things I have done, and I can only hope the people who know and love me and who knew me would be willing to defend me if it came to that.
While I was in the house converting my sketches from classic WordPress over to block WordPress, I remembered the little mouse trap and went to check it, and lo and behold, we finally caught the little guy.
Only this guy wasn’t so little, which makes me think that maybe there are teeny tiny micelets 🐁 running around that are so light that they managed not to trigger the trap… somehow. 😶
So I picked up the trap with the little mouse inside and headed down to JH Keith Park to set it free in a place that I hoped would be from people and abundant in resources.
Speaking of resources, after I got back, a couple of the neighbors came over with some vegetables they weren’t going to end up needing. 🥰
Nice to be thought of. 😊
I spent some time brushing Zorra to help thin her winter coat for the upcoming heat (was mid-80s today and is going to be ’90s tomorrow 🥵), and then I started giving the horses munch turns outside their normal area. While they munched, I set to digging up the mullein out by the south end of our driveway.
The mattock makes it much easier to dig them out. The ground is just too hard for a shovel. Nice to have effective tools. 🙏
Horses out
Hans got back while I was still giving horses munch turns, and we started talking cistern and stuff again, and then marking out the line where the foundation drain will be going.
He then got to work on the tractor, using the backhoe arm, digging the trench, while I hopped on the mower and started mowing in an effort to make progress on the mullein infestation.
I have to be careful mowing, As there are prickly pear cacti hiding in the weeds, and if I knock off the little nodules, everywhere I knock off a nodule, it’s going to grow back another plant. 😅
And as much as prickly pear cactus might be a cool cactus, they’re not so cool on the poor little blind dogs feetsies. 😬
So I walked around trying to identify prickly pear cactus plants that might be hiding among the rest of the weeds, found some, and used the matic to dig them up.
I spent the rest, gosh, I don’t even know how long, mowing, digging out mullein, mowing, digging out cactus, and going on the hunt for more cactus, so as not to shred them into a bunch of little tiny pieces that could all grow new plants. 🕵️♂️
As I mowed, I started mowing in a nearly standing position, one knee on the seat to keep the mower running (you probably already know, but if you don’t, riding lawn mowers have a safety feature where if there isn’t enough weight on the seat, it cuts the motor off, unless it’s specifically set to bypass that switch).
My quasi standing position, with the other foot running the go pedal allowed me to see over the front of the mower to hopefully see any cacti before running them over.
At one point while I had the lawn mower turned off, Hans called me over to see that the foundation drain in action, and once I got there, we set down the pipe, so the whole length of it was downhill, and outpoured water from the last rainstorm.
It worketh! 🎉
I got back to mowing, going until a good while after sunset. Sometime around maybe 8:45? the mower ran out of gas, so I figured I would call it a night. A lot nicer to mow during the evening hours than the day, but I was absolutely covered in little bits of vegetable matter that were irritating my eyes and what not.
I did one last poo drag, and Hans got the noms ready for the horses. After walking to the other side of the pasture to give them their noms, I headed over to JH Keith park to take a dip in the springs to rinse out all the irritating plant matter I was covered in, which was so nice. 🙏
Heather got back from her work trip late at night, and we chatted for a while, then we vacuumed up mouse poopies, wondering if there might be more mice because the trap hadn’t caught anything the first two nights, even though they had managed to make off with the peanut butter inside the trap.
Still boggles my mind. I have no idea how they were able to do that, but the trap is set again, and I guess we’ll see if there are any more mice (whether by missing peanut butter but no mice in the trap, or buy more mice in the trap.)
Hopefully, there are no more mice to be caught and released. 🤞
Unfortunately, after chatting and having a family evening prayer, I actually saw a mouse on top of my storage bin next to my van. It quickly straight away underneath the shipping container, but clearly we have more. 😅
[sigh]
I started a journal for a little bit, got distracted, and then called it a night because it was coming up on 1:00 in the morning.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 