Adventures In Homesteading (Day 42)

Hello Everyone!

Almost on time, Rednecks be loving their guns, Trying to get my calves to heal, Plucking up invasive mimosa trees & Antacid to the rescue!

Alright, I am running about twenty-seven minutes behind schedule this evening... which really is not all that bad considering how off that my timing has been the last few days. I would have actually been right on time if a bunch of shooting had not started across the street (with large caliber firearms) that caused the dogs to get upset... which of course meant that I had to go calm them down.

Generally speaking, I do not really mind folks shooting their guns... but between that nearby shooting range... and all the neighbors it sure does get tiresome to listen to. Plus the dogs are stressed out enough here as it is with all the vehicle traffic and such... so yeah it basically sucks to have to listen to it all the damned time.

Anyways, today I tried to stay off my feet as much as possible because my calf muscles really needed a break... and the pain (and them always being tensed up) was starting to become difficult to block out. Given that I have such a high pain tolerance... I am sure that anyone else going through similar troubles would have broken down from it weeks ago.

Honestly, I would love nothing more than to let them heal up properly before the terrain wrecks them again... but alas I know that the best thing that I can do for my mental well-being is to 'stay in motion' and continue my efforts to improve my situation. Most of the time it is not even the work itself that is causing so much discomfort... but the constant walking up and downhill combined with my muscles constantly having to compensate for the uneven terrain.

Of course no matter how hard I tried I could not sit still all day... and wound up walking around plucking invasive mimosa saplings out of the ground... which has actually been one of those things that has been nagging at me for quite some time now. To be blunt, it felt really good every time that I pulled one up by its roots and tossed it in a big stainless steel pot to be dumped on my compost mound later.

While I was doing all that, one of my good neighbors reached out and basically asked if I wanted some food... which of course I answered in the affirmative to. They brought me several bags of stuff from some kind of food pantry... plus a big bag of red apples... and more of those very delicious cherry tomatoes from their garden.

On a different note. My boy dog is still doing really well... but today I noticed that he was whining some right when it was time to give him his antibiotics and painkiller medication. Since I already needed to call the vet office to make an appointment to get his staples removed next week I inquired about it... and found out that I had been giving him twice the amount of painkillers than what I should have been giving him... and perhaps he was forming ulcers because of my mistake.

Although it was an honest mistake I still feel awful about it... but the solution was pretty simple because all I needed to do was discontinue giving him the painkillers... and start him on some famotidine which is just a common 'over the counter' antacid medicine. After rummaging through my med kit to no avail I had an aha moment... and used that delivery service to pick me some up from a local dollar store and deliver them to me.

Well, I am going to cut this short because the gunfire is ramping up (to semi and what sounds like fully automatic fire) and it is really starting to stress the dogs out. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ciao for now.