Hard Work

July 25, 2021

Howdy everybody,

Well, this latest edition of the weekly email is a bit late and I apologize for that. I'm going to blame it on two things: a late-night batch of dishes that I needed to do last Sunday and then using a jack hammer all day the following day. In an effort to be somewhat helpful around the house, I always make sure to do the dishes every Sunday. We don't have a dishwasher and this has been a long-standing practice for us. Erin probably does them another two or three times a week on top of that, but my day to shine is on Sunday. Last Sunday, I put off doing the dishes until after 8pm and that was just the kiss of death. Til I got them done it was around 10:30 at night and all I was looking to do was to put my head on the pillow at that point. Then, unexpectedly, the very next day I had to run a jack hammer all day at the construction site and, boy, was that an eye-opener! Apparently, they come in 35#, 50# and 100# sizes and I just had to handle a little one. And, at first, it didn't seem to bounce and throw me around like I had supposed would be the situation. So, I worked on the two or three different spots of concrete that I had to make disappear and it took up the whole day. I was tired afterwards, no doubt, but it wasn't until a few hours later that I started to feel the pain in my arms. Between my elbows and shoulders it felt like someone had clubbed me multiple times with a baseball bat and it felt like both of my shoulders had been pulled inside-out. I was very sore that night, but resisted the siren-call of just popping some painkillers, downing a few beers instead between the end of work and bedtime and then just hitting the sack. Amazingly, the next day, the soreness was completely gone but I was left with a general and overall feeling of fatigue that lasted for the rest of the week...when I asked my foreman why we had to rent one and why he didn't have one of his own, since he owns just about every other tool known to mankind, he simply replied that, 'They're evil,' and if he had one then people would want him to use the damn thing!

So, otherwise, looking back on the week before there were a few highlights that come to mind. The first day of the week I heard a steady clip-clop coming up the driveway from the construction site and looked over to see three huge mules methodically marching up the driveway like they were on a mule train heading somewhere. They quickly got to the fenced-in pasture and just stood there looking out to where our horses were kept(they were not present for this). I grabbed some hay and threw it down in the driveway and contacted Kim to see which one of the neighbors were missing some huge, shod mules. At the same time, a load of alfalfa forage was coming that I had to let in the gate and then unload, and, of course, that trucker called me no more than ten minutes after the mules arrived to let me know that he was out at the gate. I hopped on the buggy and sped out there, letting him in quickly before coming back to check on the mules. By this time the proper neighbors had been found and they were in the process of harnessing them and walking them back over the hill to their place. After all of that activity, the rest of the week was pretty quiet and uneventful, with me spending most of my time at work cleaning up rooms that had been worked on and prepping them for the next subcontractors that were scheduled to come. Outside of work, I finally got my alternator out of my yellow car only to find that one of the pulleys on it has slowly been eaten out from the inside giving it quite a large wobble, hence the continued throwing of the belt, and, on top of that, the nut on the end of the bolt for the whole assembly had completely lost all of its threads and needed replaced, too. So, now, it's either buy a whole new alternator and its constituent parts, or try to put it back together as tightly as I can in the meantime while I attempt to find just a single pulley and a single nut. Luckily, there were 2.7M of the W123 series of Mercedes made between 1976 and 1985, with 88% of them being the standard wheel-base saloons(sedans) that I have two of, so it usually isn't too hard to find some in a junkyard or for sale real cheap online. Otherwise, there are evermore flowers blooming, in the successive waves that we have seen since spring, and the sky and clouds half the time look so magnificent that it's all that you can do not to stop and stare.

So, now for some pictures from last week. First, our old cat Buckwheat, who originally spent most of her life at our feed mill in Pennsylvania and now spends all of her time lying in the sun on top of our bar in our little casita...almost 20 and still going strong! Next, a shot of the three mules that came to visit, sizing up the situation at the fence. Then, two shots from the jobsite: first, the aforementioned jack hammer, looking little and innocent enough; and then, our work table at the jobsite with all of our tools spread out around it, under it, on top of it, up against it, etc. I've slowly organized this area as I've been cleaning out the other areas of the house. Next, an ant mound in the driveway...these are everywhere out here and are of some size, this one being probably six inches tall! Then, a really crazy-looking grasshopper that I found out in the field while out looking for arrowheads after a rain...what do you even say to that coloring and pattern! Next, a shot of yet another full moon rising over the horse pasture. Then, two shots of some of the late summer flowers that are popping up everywhere. Then, three more great shots of some of the cloud formations that we're graced with every day and the many rainbows that form after storms. And, lastly, a few shots of all the tools that I have stuffed into the trunk of my blue car and then the two of them side by side to that I could work on them last weekend.

See you all next week with an email full of Erin's photographs!