The farmer from next door was over this afternoon raking the hay in our field into windrows in preparation for baling. It brought to mind our horse owning days - days when we'd keep the hay and it was so important to us. Terry would call us at work in the afternoon to let us know he was heading over to bale. We'd rush home anxious to get there in time to unload the first hay wagon. There were only three wagons so we'd have to work like crazy to keep up with the baler.
The first few years Carm and I did it ourselves but after that we tried to get help - often boys from the local group home. Once Kirsten and Deirdre also came out. It sure helped to have extra hands. Often I'd be in the wagon unloading it to the ground. On a good year I'd hoist 20 to 30 thousand pounds (in 40lb chunks) in an afternoon. Then there was the year that I had to get on top of the stack in the barn and Carm would hand them up to me. That was the last year I wore shorts for this job! If you've never handled hay lets just say that I had a million little cuts on my legs. And then I put Solarcain on them - stupid! I thought the agony would never end.
It was always very satisfying to see the barn brimming with enough neatly stacked hay for the winter. But it was a job that we came to dread so we started to get large square bales done. These would be stacked in the paddock and covered with tarps. As needed, a bale would be dragged down from the stack, sometimes with ropes and people power, but sometimes we needed to get the truck down there to pull. Then we'd cut the strings and flake by flake drag it into the barn and stack it ready for use. It was still lots of work, but spread out over the winter so easier to manage - and not all done on the hottest and most humid day of the year!
I've been a bit discouraged the last few days... as many of you know I've been working with my doctor to drop one of my medications. This is a painstaking process with month(s) between each small increment. Well, I was down another increment a few weeks ago and since then I've had periods of anxiety, and it is getting worse. I'd just be standing there, with nothing in particular on my mind, and this wash of anxiety would descend - not at all pleasant. So... after discussion with my doctor I'm back up to the last increment. I had been hoping to be totally off by the end of summer but that won't be the case now. I'll try again in a few months after the summer madness has passed.
Today I did another 10K on the treadmill! I shaved off 4 minutes from my last time so finished it in 86 minutes - whew. I ran more than I've ever run in any length of time. The problem with these big workouts though is I'm STARVING for the rest of the day. DQ Ultimate burger anyone? (I resisted with great difficulty)
Wednesday I had lunch with some friends from work - my old coffee group. We went to a Thai buffet... need I say more? I LOVE Thai food, it might even be my favourite, and this buffet is particularly good. It was hard not to gorge, and I'm sad to say that I did (gorge myself that is). After lunch and my doctor's appointment we went to Marks Work Warehouse to check out what they had on sale. The next day they were having a 20% off the price, including the sale price so we wanted to figure out what, if anything we wanted to buy. As luck would have it we talked to a sales person and she suggested that we put everything on hold and pick it up on Wednesday. I can't believe the clothes we got for the price. We aren't big clothes shoppers (Costco is usually where we buy our stuff), so it was good to get a few other things to tide us over till we are skinny ;-)
Dreams are necessary to life.
Anais Nin
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