Hope today is better

7/16/08 Wednesday
It didn’t any get better yesterday. I picked up the trailer from Chuck and Lillian that I was supposed to get yesterday and headed to Pam’s to get horse poop. It took a while for me to find it because I didn’t have a clear recollection of how we got there before. After a while I picked the right road and found it. It took a bit for me to fill up the trailer but I stuck to it till I was done despite the pain and not having something to drink. I need to find something to carry water and keep it cold when I do stuff like this. The horses kept an eye on me the whole time. I sure wish I’d had an apple or something to feed them. I can’t remember clearly but I think Pam told us the horses were adopted and perhaps had not been well cared for. Next time I go out I’ll bring the camera and take some pictures of them. There are four horses I think.

When I brought the trailer load of manure home I was surprised to see the dogs out running. I could have sworn I’d put them inside but can never be sure about my recollections. Then I saw it. The front screen door had the entire lower metal panel pushed out and hanging by a corner. I had locked them up but they tore the door up to escape. I hate getting this angry. This was the second time today they heard from me at this level. I cut a piece of plywood and screwed it on to cover the hole.

So anger was a big part of the day yesterday. I was seething underneath the whole day. These days don’t happen too often but when they do it’s hard on Cherie because I am hard on her too. I always feel bad later but that doesn’t do me or anyone else much good.

Then there was the frustration on top of it. While I was busy planting pumpkins, picking beans, and everything else on the farm, I forgot we were growing strawberries. Seeing how tall the weeds had gotten I went over to pull them up. That’s when I discovered that I had forgotten to water them and evidently had for a while. Most of the strawberries are dead and gone now. Even the one I was so excited about because it was sending out runners and starting new plants was dead. Out of the fifty or seventy strawberry plants we got there are now four left. Many were eaten or didn’t make it through the initial planting but the rest have been killed through neglect. I just forgot all about them. The sad part is I’ve installed soaker hoses for them and watering is a simple matter of plugging the hose in and turning it on for a half hour. I just have to remember to do it. Cherie was to help me with this and organize to do lists and a calendar of tasks but it didn’t happen.

When I went to water the melons I saw another major failure on my part. I don’t know when, because I failed to put it in this journal like I’m supposed to, I had carefully and tediously transplanted some of the new melon plants. There were hills that had three and four plants coming up and some that had none at all so I spent quite some time moving plants to fill in the empty spaces. I know for a fact that I had planned on watering the transplants right away and keeping them watered the next few days because I know you need to. Unfortunately there are just dead and dry remnants left. I wonder how long I neglected to water them.

When I went to water the pumpkins I’d planted I was surprised to see sprouts over an inch high with large leaves spreading out two inches coming out of the hills. I know the packages said they wouldn’t germinate till seven to ten days and in my mind I only planted them maybe two days ago. This inability to gauge time is a big part of my brain injury and is related to the short term memory loss. A month ago seems like yesterday and yesterday seems like last week. It is one of the reasons I should keep a calendar and schedule everything as well as keep this journal. I might think I watered everything yesterday when it was several days back.

I hope today goes better.