fighting ticks

7/1/09 Wednesday
It’s a cool (relatively) foggy morning. That means the humidity will be high so the ninety six or so temperature that’s forecast will feel like a hundred plus. Just a note to follow up on yesterday’s short post. Statistically those of us who have sustained traumatic brain injuries face a much higher likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s, especially those who endured multiple injuries. That’s one of the reason’s I take so many pictures and a reason why I’m saving the corrupted hard drive. There are something like ten thousand pictures on it. Eventually we will have the seven hundred or so dollars it will take for a lab to recover them.

Yesterday I did a lot of work around the house and because of that didn’t do much for the garden. Weeds have been growing wild everywhere, especially where we planted the buffalo grass, and just had to be dealt with. The buffalo grass was a bad idea because I learned it doesn’t do well in sandy soil. Sand is primarily what our soil is. I guess we will try Bermuda.

I’m going to try and “solarize” part of the lawn. This is where you spread out plastic and let the sun heat up the dirt underneath. Any weeds that sprout will quickly die and the temperatures should reach upwards of a 130 degrees, which will kill most of the seeds, thus we basically sterilize the soil. This way there will be a clean slate when we plant grass seed. I was going to email our friend who is big time in the oil business and ask her about what they do with the plastic that’s used to line the catch basins dug when they drill oil wells. I see it everywhere, just sitting and rotting after the well is done, and wonder if I could salvage it to use solarizing large garden plots. That would be a big help on fighting weeds.

I only have a small amount of plastic so will plant hay in the areas I can’t solarize. At least that will help cover the soil so it won’t blow away and fight the weeds some. None of the six or seven hundred pounds of rye I planted earlier this year made it because of the drought. I’ve got one fifty pound bag of hay seed that I bought with the rye sitting around so I can use that. Between Ben’s vet bills, Cherie’s fuel pump and air conditioner, and other things like registration for both trucks and losing my disability benefits, our budget is too tight to buy anything but essentials. A friend said something about “Keep giving us money” a few weeks ago. That really hurt and bothered me. They helped us buy a piece of equipment for the farm and that’s all I can think of that they did, though I can’t rely on my memory. This is something we fear, that others will judge us or feel we are a burden, or worse. I won’t take a dime from them now. I’ll keep giving and helping folks as best I can. That’s my heart. Anymore I’m afraid to talk about our needs or how tight things get because someone might interpret that as a manipulation to get money. I did ask for help with Ben’s vet bill but I was open and honest about it, no guile involved. But this is a journal of our life, the hard and good parts, just like everyone else has. What an internal conflict this is for me.

Today will be busy like every day is, as long as I’m able to work. I plan on finishing digging up the yucca plants that are growing in the middle of garden plots and transplanting them out front as part of the rock garden landscaping. They have roots like tree trunks that I haven’t found the bottom of. I end up breaking the roots off in order to get them out of the ground. I think I’ll tie a chain around them and use the front end loader to pull them up. I spend days digging around them and don’t have the time to spare. Don’t have a clue if they will survive being transplanted. If they don’t I’ll just pull them up, at least they will have been removed from being in the way.

We have to get some tick medicine. There are ticks on all the dogs. I put stuff called “Bio spot” on them but it doesn’t seem to do any good. There’s a product called “Frontline” that works well but it costs a ton of money. To get enough for all four dogs will be nearly a hundred dollars. I think I’ll try giving them a bath with some of the shampoo that’s supposed to kill the ticks. The problem is that we can’t give Ben a bath with his open wound. He had seven or eight ticks under one armpit that I found last night. I couldn’t get them all because it seemed to hurt Ben so sprayed some Raid on them in frustration. That’s not good.

Got to get out before it gets hot. I just found a tick on me. Just great. Bye.
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It’s 11:00 now. Depression came over me like a wave earlier. It’s so strange how fast this happened. But I’m slow also so the two might be related. It just makes it hard to motivate. I’m only pulling weeds and focusing on the yard. Did manage to put some plastic down. Everything requires a force of will to do, to constantly make the decision to keep pushing ahead despite thinking “why bother, I’ll never get anywhere. Why dream, why have ambition to accomplish anything. I’ll just fail anyway”. That plus the constant thoughts about what people think of me, how they judge me, makes it hard to keep going. I know this will pass. It always does, but it’s hard. I thought about running into Stanton to get a hamburger at the drug store but have no desire to be around people. Would rather hide here.
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3:25 – It’s hot, too hot. I had to come in. At least the depression has subsided. Left as quick as it came. Doing work outside is probably out till around seven tonight, when it starts cooling off. I seem to be weaker than normal. Still a little slow. Lately the headaches have been there every day. This is new. I have one now. I’m probably more than just a little slow. Can tell by how short sentences are. Guessing at a four of five on the bob scale. I washed dishes. Need to go into Midland and get tick stuff. Probably not a good idea. It would be hard for me when like this. I can go check mail, not a lot of stress there. This sucks.