Still hot

6/13/08 Friday
It’s another hot day with a lot more to come. I see that the last entry I made in this journal was Monday so now I have to piece together what happened. Don came to visit yesterday. He was glad to get out of the house now that he can move around on crutches. Despite that he went out to look at the garden with me. I think I talked more about what I haven’t done in the garden than what I have. He brought over a huge oak rocking chair that his daughter gave to us. I hope to refinish it sometime in the future but don’t have any confidence that will happen. I just don’t have much confidence in myself right now. My track record is pretty bad.

Out of the ninety afghan pines we planted to make a wind break only fourteen still live. Some of them are in such sad shape I don’t have a lot of hope for them. I can’t blame this on the gophers. Sure they took out some when we first planted them but I pretty much have killed the rest by not keeping up on watering them. This hundred degree heat hastened that. Every day I would get up and think “I need to water the afghans” but it would never happen. I just forget, and forget, and forget again. I stay busy but get little done. I paid the twenty dollars it takes to fill the propane tank up and tried to blow up the gopher tunnels with out success. The other day there were more potato plants dead so I got it out again. Perhaps just filling the tunnels with propane will work by making the air unbreathable. So I put the hose down the hole and turned it on. I ran up front to turn water on, get gloves, or something. Hours later I noticed the tank sitting out and remembered I was gassing the gopher tunnels. It was empty. This is typical and frustrating. Just about everyone we talk to say they have the same problems forgetting things but it’s not the same. I’m like the eighty year old who puts a pot on the stove and forgets, thus being a danger to themselves and others around them.

They had a piece on the news about heat exhaustion and heat stroke because it has been so hot lately. When they listed the symptoms I realized I have been dancing on the edge of this for as long as it’s been hot. Sweating profusely I do anyway so never thought much about it. Getting dizzy is also something I commonly endure because of the brain injury and is often a part of the petite seizures, so I never equated that to heat exhaustion, or at least never thought much of it. The lightheaded disorientation is also something I regularly experience from the TBI so wasn’t significant to me. Seeing all of these listed helped me realize that I experience all of them after being out in the heat for an hour or two. But that won’t change much. I work till I get weak and tired and come in to cool off anyway. Plus I drink a gallon or two of the green tea Cherie makes. I’m in right now to do that. Lots of times I fall asleep when I do.

I’ve been mowing and then tilling between the rows for the last two days. Pretty much have to because the weeds and sticker grass are growing despite the rye.
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I’m back already. Went out to do some more mowing and I don’t think I made it an hour. One of my hoses burst so I fixed that. This is a regular event as most of my hoses are the old used ones I pick up from the landfill or are given to me. Laying out in this Texas sun does them in pretty quickly. Anyway, I didn’t last long out in this heat. This morning the humidity was at 65% and I’m sure it’s still up there. Unfortunately this means the evaporative air conditioner doesn’t cool the air as well but it’s still better than outside. Our electric bill is now over a hundred dollars because we run it so much. If we had a regular air conditioner it would probably be around three hundred dollars and we can’t afford that. When I come in I just strip my t-shirt off and sit in front of the fan till the sweating slows down. Otherwise my pillows will get soaking wet when I lay down. They get wet anyway. There is not much wind out there and that makes it worse. I was complaining about how bad it is to have a hundred plus degree wind blowing in your face but now would rather have that. At least then the sweat evaporates quickly, thus cooling you down some.

So I’m not getting much done. I’ll have to call it quits till later this evening when it cools down some. It was still ninety one degrees out at ten o’clock last night so even that is still warm. There is so much to do but I’m just not up to it, not in this heat. It’s 3:30 now and I’m tired as I often am at this time of day so I guess I’ll take a nap.

Never took the nap. Cherie got her check for the one day of work she did subbing for a receptionist so I can get enough gas to get to Midland and back. I need to go so I can poop scoop for Janie as well as draining the dog tank and putting fresh water in it. Gracie, the cat we got from Janie’s garage, went in to get fixed today. That will slow her down for a bit. She’s not warming up to the new kittens very well but that’s to be expected from a cat that lived on the street for a while. Poor Rascal wants to play with them in the worst way, whimpering in her frustration when she can’t join in. They hiss and get all upset when he tries. The only way Rascal knows how to play is roughhousing with Trixie. When he first tried I thought he was attacking them so smacked him to say “no”. He watches them play intently with his tail wagging, just wanting to join in but not knowing how.