Always Something

March 13, 2022

Howdy folks!

Well, I had a refresher course on gravity over the weekend. I ended up missing work on Friday for yet another snow day and offered to come in Sunday morning, when not a soul would be around, to clean the place top to bottom and get it ready for the following week. I put an hour in coiling up power cords and air hoses, stacking ladders all on top of each other in one spot, picking up tools and other random things and putting them away, and spot sweeping big messes on the floor in preparation for vacuuming and sweeping the whole place. Just as I was about to start vacuuming, I attempted to slide some big cardboard sheets behind a stack of sheet rock that was leaning against the wall. There were about ten of them and they were nearly ten feet wide and chest-high and just as I pulled them about an inch, or two at the most, towards me, the whole pile decided that it was tired of standing vertically and started to fall towards me. As I was right up against it, not even a foot or so from the wall, I tried to stand the pieces up and push back on them...but, to no avail. I instinctively planted my feet and just as I felt the force of the sheets falling on me and pushing on my hands and arms, I felt the calf on my furthest-back foot tear and heard it audibly pop as my ankle and knee on the same leg buckled. Just as quickly as it began, nearly instantly, the pile of sheet rock flopped down on the floor and effortlessly pushed me back a few feet across the floor once the resistance of my planted foot was removed. So, I just stood there and thought to myself, 'Great! What the hell did I do that for!?' I also felt the pain in my calf that just had a huge bolt of energy exit my body from it. A little wobbly, and a little sore, but otherwise not in too bad of shape, I proceeded to vacuum and sweep and finish with another three hours of cleaning. I soldiered through and before I knew it the whole place was done and it was time for me to limp back on down the hill. I laid on the couch the rest of the day with a compression wrap on, icing it every couple of hours, and just trying to stay off of it. When I would stand up to go to the bathroom, I had to use a cane and it took nearly a minute to flex my foot flat without triggering a huge charley horse and then I would hobble around the room for a while. My calf was swollen, but nothing else seemed visibly wrong, so I just slept on it. I did decide to take a couple days off at the beginning of the week, just to make sure everything was alright, but already by Sunday night I was feeling much, much better and had even figured out how to walk around without the assistance of the cane...it's always something, isn't it?

The temperature is still bouncing around all over the place, some days nearly 70 and others struggling to get out of freezing range. We get a shot of snow, almost eight inches on Friday, for instance, and it's mostly gone by the end of the day. Then, if the temperature stays above freezing, all the melted snow turns our red, dusty dirt into mud and it sticks to your shoes and boots like wet concrete, getting all over the house. And, then, like clockwork, that muddy period only lasts a day or two and it's back to the same old stony, dusty dirt. The dogs are always angling to work their way over to the pond, especially on nice and sunny afternoons, and it doesn't take long before they're covered in the dark, nearly black, stinking mud in the pond...actually, the nearly dried out branches of the pond turn into mud bogs(stinking, dark black mud) that are worse than the bottom of the pond itself(goopy and loose brown mud)! Then, I have to make sure that our big L couch that we have, literally, in actuality, one big dog bed, is covered by our huge stack of polar fleece blankets. And, of course, no matter how tightly I have the blankets on, one of the dogs always finds a spot to squirm into so that they can spread a little mud onto it. And, believe you me, when that happens I get an earful! The cats are going crazy with the nicer and longer days, with our adult, outdoor female definitely pregnant and our two nearly-grown kittens crawling around on their bellies everywhere begging someone to do the same to them. We're pretty sure that before long we're going to be swimming in cats here! The horses are good and Freedom has nearly lost her limp from the hoof trimming a few weeks ago. The oldest male, Milagros, though, keeps wandering around like he's lost and I keep finding him separated from the other nine horses. This has only happened two or three times in the last few months, but I feel like he's getting a little senile and somehow isn't keeping up with the group's constant walking or is missing the cues that they're going to move, feed, drink, lie down, etc. I don't see any danger in this for him, as he keeps turning up to eat and he's never terribly far away, but it is just another thing to add to the daily chore list. That being said, with all the other things that I've had to do in my life as far as work is concerned, taking care of a big, ol', shaggy and senile horse that bears a striking resemblance to Snuffleupagus is about the coolest job a guy could ever ask for!

Now, for our weekly dose of pictures from the prettiest, little ranch where the southern Rockies slam into the High Plains! First up, two shots of our pregnant cat, Bootsie, hanging out just outside of our big southern-facing window and mugging for the camera. Then, a shot of one of the kittens, Chelly, looking pretty and gnawing on some rose stems. Next, three shots of our knuckleheads chasing each other around the chaise chair that I like to sit in, where I like to soak up the best view in the West! Then, two shots of me feeding the horses the other morning, when Erin decided to ride along with me. Next, a current shot of the second flagstone patio that my buddy, Valentin, has been working on...one of my many jobs at work each day is helping him to move all these around, especially the huge, square slabs that he starts with! Then, another of my little projects, in this case adding dirt close to the house so that water will drain away from it into these tree wells. Next, a view to the north from the backside of the new house, showing some lightly snow-frosted hills to our north. And, finally, the last five shots are from a night last week that I spent working on my cars and the tractor: first, my two key chains that Erin got for me in Porto, Portugal, that mimic the carved masks from all the folklore rituals that are still practiced in the countryside; then, another two shots showing the wonderful perch where I get to work on everything; and, lastly, a random shot that I took that didn't turn out too bad!

Take care and see you soon.