learn to be content

10/3/08 Friday
I still hurt some and am a little slow but can’t let that stop me. Yesterday I had to take part of the steering column apart to get Cherie’s key to work. It’s still apart now so if she gets pulled over it looks like someone tore it up to steal the car. I’ll work on it when she gets home.

One of the things I read yesterday said that it takes 180 degrees to kill weed seeds. That’s not good because I’ve been putting all the sticker grass clippings in the compost bins believing that hot composting would kill them. Now I may just be spreading this problem directly where I plant my crops. Nuts. I think I will do some more research with the hope of finding out this is wrong.
(click to enlarge. It really makes a difference)

Yesterday I worked hard cleaning and organizing a barn for the old man. I had been carefully moving and stacking wood in a spot for maybe an hour when I looked up and suddenly saw this. It stopped me cold in my tracks. I just stood there frozen for a while as it talked to me. It told of an entire life lived with a debilitating disease, There were happy times for sure but the pain, the anguishes? Oh God. In the past I wrote and took pictures of the worn out wheelchairs the old man had at another location but this just drove things home more. I bow in respect to the father who loved and did the best he could and know there were many others who were in touch with this mans life.


I realize again how blessed I am. I live in pain, I get lost and easily, sometimes forgetting what I’m doing as I do it, I have these types of seizures that make me stupid for a while, I…well there is a whole list of problems from the brain injury but don’t want to get into them. The point is that despite all my problems I’m a blessed man. I have life, I have my wife, I am clothed and fed, what more can a man ask for? Oh, we can all ask for more things but with these I am content. To learn to appreciate the life we have is to learn how to be free of the things that can consume true joy, to be free of greed, covetousness, and the unhealthy ambitions that drive many of us. I sometimes say “I used to complain about having no shoes till I met a man with no feet” and the fact is that is true. I once met a man with no legs and he had a great attitude that put me to shame. So I need to focus on these things when my problems get me down.

I took a pain pill so it’s time to go out to work. Got a farm to build.