Too much distractions.

Gawd, I wish I had something new to report but on the most part today was a lot like any other day, except that I (we) got less done. Grrr.

There is no interesting dream to yap about when I wake this morning by the shrilling alarm and the morons jumping up and down at the foot end. I roll my eyes at the sight of them, wondering if they’re ever going to quiet down a bit. They will, of course, but while still in their youth it seems like it is taking forever.

The downside is definitely the fact that when the dogs do get older, I start to get depressed about the fact that time is passing way too fast and that age is slowly killing their enthusiasm for life, so I really shouldn’t complain.
Right, moving on…

Weather wise it wasn’t the most glorious of days. Plenty of clouds sluggishly move across the sky, and occasional rain comes pounding down about every hour, without fail. I actually just barely make it to the house before it starts up again.

I deal with the day’s laundry first, figuring I might as well get it over with. That done, I head inside to have some breakfast and chat with big brother and grandpa who are planning to head out within the hour to get sand for cement.

When they depart, I’m just about to get ready to start up the computer when suddenly the power goes off. Frowning at the inconvenience, I head for the pantry to check the fuses and find out that the wiring of one of the main fuses has blackened considerably, warning me not to put the power back on.

Instead, I grab my cell phone and call grandpa. He and big brother have just passed the gate and are driving up the mountain when he picks up and I inform him of the problem.
Since there is little else I can do at this point, without power I really don’t like using my computer since I have no idea how long my battery will hold out, I decide to start on today’s dinner early.

For days now I have been thinking about preparing a vegetable oven dish, so with this slight hiccup in our usual schedule, I figure I might as well get to it. While grandpa takes out the potatoes for peeling, and big brother heading into the pantry to fix the problem with the fuse, I start chopping veggies.

By the time the ingredients have been prepared and the fuse is repaired, it’s too late to head for the construction company for our daily batch of sand. Drat! (After one thirty pretty much everything around here is closed for siesta up until five in the afternoon. It is rather frustrating on days when more pressing matters demand time and effort.) No matter, though, at this time it is raining again, leaving us free to start on the day’s edit.

We manage only three and a half pages today, what with everything going on, and have worked on the story an hour longer than usual when we really can’t postpone the inevitable. We head on out then, splitting up in two groups.
Big brother, grandpa and little sister leave to get more rocks while middle sister and little brother join me to fix the drive sweep.

Our tenant is going to be picked up in the near future for treatment for her partial paralysis and in order for the wheelchair to reach the ambulance that will drive her to the center where she will get her treatment, we need to even out the road.

With shovels and pick axes, middle sister and I attack a spot in the garden where we should be able to get enough dirt to fill the gaps. In the hour that passes while the others are away to get our rocks, we actually chop loose ten full wheelbarrows–carting it to the deep gutter in the road–and are just about to finish up when the truck returns.

We hurry to the center gates, chasing the dogs out of the way so the car will be able to drive down into the carport. Big brother carefully slides the truck in place, showing that they got a little enthusiastic with filling the truck bed up. It is literally filled to full capacity. We unload by working as a chain and then climb down to get the majority in place for tomorrow’s intended building.

It’s already past eight in the evening–with the sun disappearing behind the mountain in the west–when we decide that it was enough today and head into the house to have dinner.

Though it was our intention to do more editing tonight, we really don’t get to it, considering that there was a lot to discuss. And discussions, inevitably, take several hours when at least five people are involved.
I suppose that our discussions can appear a bit strange at times, considering we’ll be talking all at the same time, while everyone is randomly bending down to pick yet another tick off some passing dog without ever breaking the conversation up. Hah.

The ticks are definitely starting to become a huge problem of late…just like last year, I might add…and I do hope that the temperatures will rise a bit in the near future. Otherwise we won’t be able to give the pack the chemical bath that will help battle the ticks at the very least.

At long last midnight arrives and I head up for the night. I gotta admit that I’m quite exhausted tonight. Strange how discussions can be more tiring than a full day’s work. Guess they’re right when they say that exercising the “brain muscle” uses up more than its fair share of energy. Hah.