Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Gotta go, Lots to do

3/18/09 Wednesday
Monday was a frustrating day. I thought for sure that I would finish tilling the last section but I didn’t even make it halfway but I came close as you can see from the picture. I was planning on running to the bank to get the pipeline contract attached to the sight draft but Steve had me hold off till he got ahold or Rusty. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to reach him so I’ll be hitting the bank as soon as they open this morning. That’s in just a few minutes so don’t have time to write much.

I will say this to make sure it’s recorded. For the last four days my sense of taste and hunger have returned. For those of you who don’t know I lost these along with my sense of smell when I got the brain injury. It’s not that I can’t taste at all but flavors were dim to say the least. Hunger I didn’t feel at all so had to make sure I ate by the clock because otherwise I’d simply forget to eat and couldn’t remember if I had that day at all. I’ve had short periods, sometimes just minutes, where these senses would return, sometimes accentuated to an incredible degree that was overwhelming. The other morning Cherie brought me a cup of coffee and I asked if she had gotten a new creamer because this one was incredibly good. Nope, it’s the same creamer we’ve been using. When you suddenly can taste it’s like a bright light shining that’s hard to look into. Feeling hungry isn’t as pleasant for it’s like I haven’t eaten in a week but still it’s a good thing. All this is a good indication that these portions of my brain are continuing to rewire. When I go back and read earlier sections of this journal it helps me realize just how far I’ve come, how I continue to heal.
As far as I got tilling Monday

I finally completed tilling the last section yesterday. There’s still about an acre I haven’t been able to do and won’t mess with for now. Ran out of seed and there are more important things to do. The tiller still gives me fits. Monday it was real cantankerous and that was the main reason I didn’t finish on that day. All it takes is one grain of sand wandering around in the carburetor to mess things up. Monday was rough because the frustration built till I blew up. I was mad at myself, the tiller, and my inability to siphon the gas out of Cherie’s now defunct car was the final straw. I hate it when I lose emotional control. Fortunately it doesn’t last too long and I’ve learned to do something that settles me down. Don’t know what I did, probably turned on the boob tube and watched whatever inane nonsense was on.

Got to go to the bank. I’m wearing nice clothes instead of the work clothes that I turn into rags so quickly, wearing holes in the knees and spilling oil or whatever on them. I wear out lots of pairs of jeans and t-shirts come and go with regularity. One day I went to return a seven dollar item at Lowe’s and despite having the receipt was treated like I was some kind of drug addict trying to hustle the store with the clerk calling management and sending someone back to triple check that what I was returning was indeed the item on the receipt. Now the lack of emotional control I displayed that day was deserved, at least I think. The core of that issue was probably the fact that my jeans had the knees blown out and having spent the day out in the fields bustin my butt meant I was a dirty sweaty smelly mess.

Nuff said, bye now.
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Getting that payment may take a while. The bank said they already sent the draft to the oil company and I had no luck finding the guy who’s name is on the envelop we were supposed to put the contract it. I found him in the sense of having a phone number but got no answer. I just hope we are able to get that tractor. Tonya, the lady who has it, came and looked at the blog yesterday according to my Statcounter program. She was amenable to not being in a hurry to sell it before we had a chance to get it but you can’t abuse that kind of generosity.

I don’t remember how it was last year, or the year before, but this heat sucks the energy out of me hard. So I’m in to get a big drink of tea. It’s nice to have my taste buds back cause it sure is some good tea that Cherie made. In fact it tasted so strong I had her dilute it drastically yesterday.
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Rusty, the oil pipeline guy, returned my call. I explained our concerns about how long it would take to get the payment and he said “It’s a sight draft. Those don’t take long”. I told him that I’d never seen a sight draft in my life. He never said how long “not long” is, so I’m still not sure but he will send someone by to pick up the contract tomorrow. Keep ya posted.

I’m pleased in that I think I got a lot done today. It seems that my sense of smell is returning too. As I tilled up the soil in preparation for the strawberry plants the odors were wonderful. Just love the smell of freshly turned dirt. Even the compost smelled great despite it being mostly horse poop. Actually it no longer smells like horse manure now that it’s been composting all winter.

Well folks, I’ve finally planted my first thing for the year. That would be fifty strawberry plants. You can’t see them in the picture because they are so small but this whole row is strawberries. I laid out the drip tape in preparation for installing it but have to figure some things out on how to do so.

I’m tired so should sleep well tonight.
Tonight's sunset

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, my name is misty, I have been following your page since last year sometime. I just wanted to let you know that I am happy for you in that some of your senses seem to be trying to return! You should try to sell some of your photographs.. they are amazing!!!! Good luck!

Bob Westbrook said...

Others have suggested I sell them as well but I really don't know how to go about it. I know that many of them are downloaded, some are downloaded many times. Someone said I should copyright them but again I don't know how and haven't bothered to find out. I would like to get a program that allows me to put some kind of identification on the bottom. Thanks for following and leaving this comment. I always like to hear from folks who read this boring stuff.

Anonymous said...

hmm I do not know either, maybe I can take some time to find that out.

Your blog is not at all boring~~It is very inspiring.. you work so hard... even with all of the suffering you deal with, you push on... to get done what you started. That is very impressive. You and your wife seem to be lovely people.. your love of animals says alot. I too am an animal lover. :) Take care, and I will try to look in to the copyright stuff etc.. do not know how long it will take.. but i will see what I can do. I know esp. with how the economy is right now, ANY extra cash flow is very welcome!
Misty