Sunday was another gorgeous day. My fears about a long dry Summer are increasing. The ground is totally dry and there’s no rain in sight on the forecast. It’s just April, the month made famous for showers, and I’m having to water the gardens already.
Her Highness and I walked a short walk in the morning, and at 9:15, I started schlepping wood from one woodshed to another. I must do this to keep the well-seasoned wood together and accessible. My first goal of the day was to clear out one shed to receive the new wood that Kevin and I are chopping. I reckon I’ll have to buy 2 cords of wood, but when I first came here, I was buying 6 ‘cords’ a year. (They weren’t true cords, but they were sold as such.)
I finished that chore by 11:00 and had lunch. I also fed the brood. I was desperate for the break because my back was screaming sore. I had to bend to pick up all the wood to put it in the wheelbarrow, and then stack it in the dry shed. I took a good break before starting my second task of the day: chain sawing the biggest branches that were all around where we are working on the fallen and bucked trees. It’s amazing how much wood I can salvage from branches for burning next Winter.
Just before noon, I took a deep breath, went outside, fetched the chain saw, started sawing up the branches, loading the pieces into the wheelbarrow and then stacking them in the drying shed. This work exhausts me, yes, but I love doing physical labour. I truly do. Perhaps that’s a boy thing. It’s almost fun if I take breaks. Plus, I feel so chuffed to be harvesting firewood for Winter from my own land.
At 12:30, Kevin and Shelly arrived to help. me for a while. They had people viewing their home that’s on the market, so they came here to help me. The chucked rounds we are breaking down are 2.5 meters across and 50 cm thick. We flip the round onto one side, and with the wedges, we break it into large and very large pieces. These pieces are the first cut. There’s about 8 of them. That’s the work that Kevin does.
While Kevin chopped some of the massive round, Shelly and I schlepped the second chop pieces into the drying shed. They helped me until 2:30 and I came in and wrote to a fellow who helped chop some of the rounds last year. He’s Joe, and I hope he’ll come back to do more of the work Kevin has been doing. The more wood I harvest, the less I must buy.
It had clouded over. I got immediately into the spa. Oh, that wonderful healing feeling of being warm all over. Without thinking, I find my eyes close as soon as I’m in the water. It’s a pattern that just happens; it’s so immediately calming. When I got out, I knew this was going to be one of those rare days when we don’t go for our afternoon walk. I wanted to light a fire to warm up the house, and putter about the house. Allyson and Peter come on Tuesday.
Today, I’ll be doing some clean-up of the yard because there was a windstorm on Saturday night that brought down a lot of material into the yard, including two large branches.
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Mad Man’s Diary: I did not expect Kevin on Saturday. He just arrived with his maul and two stell wedges. The wedges are a wonder to use. Kevin showed me how to find the right place to split a large piece of wood. I was working on Nancy’s birthday cake, but I wasn’t having a neighbour come to do work for me without me working along beside him, so that’s what I did. And then I had to rush on the cake, feed the pets, shower, shave and change, and get to the party.
I crashed at about 8:30. Stacy brought me a heating pad to put on my chest, she walked me to a sofa to lie on, and she left me alone. The best part for me was this: she left me alone. That helps me more than anything. That’s the best way for me to get back to functional. And then I went home, and all through the night I was awakened by very painful cramps in my legs, arms and hands. I had a very uncomfortable night.
The right thing to do might be to have said to Kevin: Thank you for offering, but I’d like to do the work with you, and I can’t today. I chose to accept volunteer labour when it’s convenient for my friends. I did it and prepared to be late for the party, and being late wasn’t going to be a problem. Still, it was like, at 8:30, my body said, “I’m done.” And I became a wreck.
All that was too much for me. It brought me to consciousness of my vulnerability.
I thought about it, pondering what aspect of the day was bothering me. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my brain says to me: Pete made appointments.
My first lessons with Dr. Shoja were about the amygdala and its function. I won’t bore you with the medicine, but I’m glad she educated me because if I ever should run into someone who wants to know more about what I t’s like having my particular form of mental illness, I can answer their questions. The amygdala is commonly considered the “fight or flight” response centre for the brain. Dr. Shoja told me that mine was stuck on the highest alert.
Kevin wasn’t part of my plan for the day. If he hadn’t come, I think my evening would have been fine. But Kevin is not the problem, it’s my reaction to things not going as planned. And there’s more to learn from this as well: I can sustain the visits of drop-byes if the visits ae very short. It’s only the long ones that send me into symptom land.
Big lesson learned.
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Last night, I started noticing white lights arcing across the left field of my vision. I went to Google and got a confirmation of what I suspected: a detaching retina. I will call my ophthalmologist (via the TTY service) to see what I should do, but I don’t want to do anything until Thursday if I can help it, because Ally and Peter will be here as of tomorrow.
It’s a thin line of light I see, so maybe waiting a couple of days is okay. If I am right about what is going on, I face a few weeks of no fitness or strenuous exercise.
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| The work area. I had to create a trail to the felled trees and clear all the brush from the area in which we were working. There is a ton of work for me to do, but it's good work and has no deadline. |
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| These are the massive rounds we are breaking down. As we move down the tree the rounds are over two meters wide. These ones are still too wet to chop into smaller pieces, so I will get them spaced apart so that they dry for next year |
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