It’s barely after 10:00, but I am wiped.
I got up for the last time somewhere around 7:30, I think. Ate an apple, took my pills, and gripped my sobriety coin.
I’m really grateful for the sobriety that I have right now. I feel a lot like back in May and June and July of last year when the blessings just truly felt like a miracle.
I’m grateful for the miracle. 🤍
And I feel like where I’m at right now is better than where I was at last year about the same time. 🙏
Speaking of things I’m grateful for, I’m grateful that once again I was actually able to sleep on my back without significant discomfort! 🎉
After crawling out of my van, I mucked out the barn which gratefully didn’t have much to muck out, and then I took the horses out for a munch.
After that, I started just digging. Digging digging digging.
In an effort to try to save my back, I would lower the backhoe attachment of the tractor with the bucket all the way at the bottom of the pit, and then I would use the shovel to fill the bucket, climb out of the pit, raise the bucket, and dump the dirt to one side. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I spent probably two or three hours for digging and shaping the walls to try and make it a 4-ft by 4-ft by 5-ft deep hole.
It was exhausting.
After those first hours, I took a break, bringing the horses back out to munch again. I keep trying to get them to munch the weeds out of the rock pile, and normally, I think they’d be totally fine with that, except for the roots of the weeds are so shallot because of all the rocks that when the horses try to just cut the top half of the plants off, the roots come with them. I could tell that neither horse was excited to be eating those particular weeds, not for the flavor, but just because they come up with the roots, and they don’t want to eat the dirty roots.
Poor River tries to tear the weeds out as gently as he possibly can, but they still come up with the roots. 🙃
Oh well.
Ingrid and a friend of hers came over to chat about a piece of property going up for auction in a week and a half supposedly, it had a fantastic view, but when we went back to look at it, using satellite navigation to walk the perimeter of the property line, we realized it did not have a great view. It’s the lot next door that has the fantastic few.
At least that clarified whether or not we were going to be bidding on the property.
Nope.
After coming back from that little impromptu excursion, I got back to digging. Though it was gratefully much much cooler today, I was still sweating buckets, and I was wearing myself out.
Probably would have helped if I had eaten a decent breakfast. Hard to have energy when you haven’t provided your body with any. 😆
Unfortunately, because the hole was as deep as it was, I couldn’t use the tractor to do any of the digging. That’s why it was so exhausting. I was using a shovel and one of those long, heavy digging bars.
I was a little concerned about my back, but… I was trying to take care of it, so I kept going.
I didn’t really feel any issues at all during the first few hours, but then my back started tightening up a bit, and ended up being sore the rest of the day.
Hopefully, that doesn’t last too long. I’m going to eat something really quickly and take some ibuprofen before I conk out tonight, which will hopefully be very very soon.
But I’m writing in my journal, and it’s day of, so we’ve got some good progress here. 🙏
Got myself some water to hydrate, as I was starting to get dehydrated. Started working a little bit on my glory word study, and I started looking up stuff about burying solid corrugated drainage pipe.
Sorry, I don’t have much energy right now, so this is probably a pretty boring. 😆
I chatted a little bit with Heather about the drainage stuff, and then I went over and checked on something for a neighbor.
When Hans got home, we filled the pit with water (well about a third of the way). Red dirt can hold water better than concrete, and the last probably 18 in or so of the 5 ft plus deep pit were red dirt, so we wanted to see how well it would drain.
We all talked drainage and pit stuff together inside as Heather prepared dinner. 🙏 Our first check of the drainage had it having dropped about 4 and 1/2 inches and I think less than 2 hours? I think maybe it was maybe an hour and 20 minutes?
Definitely don’t quote me on that. 😅
… Gosh, I’m hammered. 😅
We spent a little while watching Elder Gong’s presentation on artificial intelligence. As I think you’re all pretty familiar, though I’m not a tech geek, I definitely geek out over tech. 🙃 (I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone but me, but basically what that means to me is that I have no real skill to participate in the incredible technological advances that are going on, but I absolutely love to learn about what’s going on and what’s becoming possible.)
😁
I think we watched maybe the first 20 minutes or so of the hour-long presentation before it was time to call it a night.
Heather and I went out to check the pit drainage one last time and then to try to cover it, so as to hopefully avoid more little critters falling in. 🤞
I grabbed a 2×4 from downstairs, laid it across the hole, and then used the plywood sheet pieces that we had used yesterday to cover the now bigger hole.
Good golly. I don’t know how many times I’ve yawned while writing this, but it’s definitely not just been a couple times.
I took River out to munch one last time, which was a little bit of strategy on my part, because Heather wanted to take his fly mask off, but I think he thought he was going to have to have his hooves trimmed. So I went and got the bridle, thinking that he would be more likely to let me put a bridle on (which would allow her to take the mask off), because when I get the bridle, it usually means he gets to go out and munch on tasty plants.
Gratefully, it worked. 🙏
I bid Heather good night, and began chatting on the phone for a good little while with my friend Cory. I probably mentioned it yesterday, but we’re working on the word study together, and we spent a little bit of time talking about that, a fair amount of time talking about other related concepts that we’re studying, and then some time talking about what one of the members of the branch asked me on Saturday night.
Did I mention that? She asked me how I would feel about leading the music in primary.
When she asked that, I was thinking standing in front and just waving my arms to the music at whatever time the particular song was in.
But no, what she actually meant was being the person who teaches the songs to the kids, prepares primary programs, etc etc etc.
😶
😳
🫣
It wasn’t an official request or “calling” (as specific responsibilities are called in our church), but it’s certainly got my brain all twisted up and knots.
I don’t know if there’s a calling in the church that would be further outside my comfort zone than that one. 😅
Good golly goodness.
😳
For whatever reason, it didn’t even dawn on me to chat with a Big Guy about it, so I was grateful when Cory suggested that.
I’m not going to be surprised at all if Mr Big Shot kindly lets me know that if I want to grow, it’s going to be good for me to say yes. 😅
[sigh]
Of course, I don’t know if she’ll actually want me, as I’m rarely in town. I’ll be here for the next three months, and then I’ll likely be gone for at least two months, and there’s a good chance a fair bit longer than that.
Anyway, it’s 11:04, and as you well know, I’m exhausted. Need to eat a little bit, so I’m able to take the ibuprofen.
But hey, I wrote my journal again. Day of.
🎉
I’m probably forgetting something, possibly even something significant, but… that’s all for tonight, folks.
Loves. 🩵
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 