five in the morning

6/2/09 Tuesday
It’s five in the morning now. Maybe I’ll be able to write something because I can’t seem to go to sleep. Had a rough spot Sunday. Went over to talk to the guys we sold the car to because we had yet to see anything from them despite it being over two months, except one hour of work. I took over a pot with morning glories dug out of our garden in it that they said they liked, because I intended to be nice. Sitting down I said “Talk to me Tommie” hoping to get some kind of response regarding what they owed on the car. It ended up bad as the emotional control issue I have from the TBI raised it’s ugly head. I got up and left because my anger was getting out of control. Come to find out they thought we should give them the car because someone gave Cherie a truck and probably never intended to pay for it. “What would the people at your church think of you” was thrown at Cherie later. Strange to hear that from someone how is actively gay. Come on, we sold the car for half it’s book value and said they could work off the price and only expected a hundred dollar initial payment. Plus we had given them a stove, air conditioner, kerosene heater, and several other items as gifts. I mostly wanted some help to get this farm going and wasn’t interested in the money. I guess I scared them because they called later that day and said they had the full amount owed. That confirms in my mind that they had intended to not pay. It’s not like they are poor as both work full time and don’t have bills to pay other than utilities and satellite TV. Unfortunately this affected our relationship with Chuck and Lillian, who are their good friends. Now none of them want to talk to us.


It bothers me that I have such a hard time being friendly. It’s part of the social skills I lost from the brain injury. I have to learn how to be friendly but it’s hard when I’m so uncomfortable around people. Plus I’ve lived in a different world than most, world where any sign of weakness made you a target, where you couldn’t let someone take advantage of you. In prison the axiom “Kill or be killed” was a reality. I was only nineteen when I went but it still is deep inside my psyche, kind of like the ptsd that combat veterans can have. I still sit where I can see everyone coming and going in a restaurant, where I can get up and flee or attack at any sign of danger. That is not nearly as bad as it used to be but there are still bad days. The brain injury and wandering homeless brought it back up I guess.






I’ve been working hard so haven’t written in this journal much. At least I took lots of pictures and that will help me remember what’s been going on. I’ve been running the tractor a lot with the disc set up the old man is letting me use. It’s the hardest workout it has seen since we got it. Boy, that sucker puts out some heat and it washes back over me, especially when there is no breeze. But regardless it’s still a whole lot better than doing it by hand with the tiller. I’ve done in two days what it took a month and a half to do by hand. I overfilled the transmission with the hydraulic tractor oil it takes and hope I didn’t blow any seals. I noticed it leaking pretty bad yesterday.





Saturday I noticed a white mini-van driving slowly past the house and then pull over to the side of the road. Then it turned around and sped off. I had just parked the tractor and was walking to the house when it happened. Then I saw why the van pulled over. There were two puppies running playfully towards the house. Damn. I guess word’s out that we love animals. We have had several dogs dumped off here. Anyone want a puppy? We will get them their shots and try to adopt them out.


As bad as I feel about blowing up at Tommie and Jamie it’s good that I did for we needed the money. Cherie’s truck stopped running yesterday. I’m pretty sure it’s the fuel pump. The pump has been noisy since we got it and you can’t hear any noise at all. If we are lucky some rats just chewed some wires like they did on Cherie’s car a couple of times. Otherwise I’ve got a chore ahead as the fuel pump is in the gas tank so that will have to be removed.

I’ve got maybe a hundred cantaloupe planted and also a hundred or so of the golden honeydew we bought at the farmer’s market. It’s a start. The corn I planted to replace what I killed never came up. They were seeds left over from last year so I guess aren’t any good anymore.




At the landfill I found some good heavy fence posts made out of old telephone poles. It killed me to load them on the truck but I sure could use them. Got a total of twenty six. Took two trips to do it and had to spread that over two days because of the pain lifting them caused. So I’ve been busy digging post holes. Only got about half of them in.

That’s it for now. I have to take Ben to the vet for x-rays in about ten minutes. He’s doing well but the leg has shriveled up and he doesn’t use it at all. I try to stretch it like the doc showed me but it hurts him a lot. Poor guy wants to play and can’t.