On Wednesday night of last week Terry started feeling bad, with body aches and pains, and she wasn’t able to sleep well. By Thursday night it hit her pretty hard, and ever since then the poor lady has been miserable. She’s had a temperature of as much as 102o, says she feels like she is freezing, has a terrible headache and swollen lymph glands, and she said even her hair and skin hurt. On Sunday she slept for several hours during the day. In the 27 years we have been together I could count on one hand the number of times she has slept during the day and still have fingers left over. Acetaminophen and ibuprofen have helped the worst of the symptoms, but not by much.
I think right now we’ve all been conditioned to fear that whenever something out of the ordinary happens healthwise it might be COVID. Whatever it was, I know she needed some help, and when I called Pickens County Primary Care yesterday they said to bring her in.
Even though we had just been there on Thursday of last week and had blood work done as part of our regular checkups, they ran more blood work and other labs yesterday. We still don’t know what is wrong with her, but the test results show it’s not COVID or the flu. At least that’s a relief. We should know more later this afternoon when the results of the labs come back.
Back at home, I wanted to take advantage of the break in the weather, so I used the mid-mount mower on my Kabuta tractor to mow the steep hill next to the garage, and also most of Terry’s garden, which had gotten away from us and was terribly overgrown.
In the process of mowing the garden I scared up two very large black snakes, who went slithering away. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who can tolerate snakes and those who want nothing to do with them. I fall into the latter category and make no apologies for it. I let these guys go because they looked to be just harmless snakes, if there is such a thing.
But we also have a lot of rattlesnakes, cottonmouth moccasins, and copperheads around here. One gentleman walks down the road every day with a long stick, and usually manages to kill one or two on his walk. I don’t want to get close enough to a snake to kill it with a stick. I’ll rely on my little Rossi revolver and CCI snake loads if I encounter one, which I’m sure is only a matter of time. I’m always worried about Alli getting tangled up with one and try to keep an eye on her when she’s out with me.
I wanted to pull out the metal fence T-posts that were around the garden, so I tried to do it using a chain and the tractor’s bucket loader. When Travis helped me do this it was easy because he would wrap the chain around the post and guide it while I lifted the bucket. It turns out it is a two-man job, and every time I tried it alone the chain just slipped off. But I found this nifty T-post puller plate on Amazon and ordered it. From what I’ve read of the reviews it should make it a lot easier to get those darn posts out of the ground.
Giving up on the fence posts for now, I spent another hour or so using the tractor’s bucket to move some of the railroad ties I had bought a while back from where they were dumped at the end of the barn road to where I want them to be to build my shooting backstop. That’s another job that would be easier with two people, but I managed to get 14 of them relocated, working on my own. A long-time reader wrote to ask me if I would be in violation of any local regulations setting up a shooting range on my property. No, I checked that out ahead of time. We are in the county, and it is allowed. Several of our neighbors also like to shoot and we hear them on a regular basis.
Even though Terry was feeling crappy, she still insisted on making dinner last night, and it was another outstanding meal. Seared and roasted pork loin chops, along with corn cut off the cob and fried with bacon bits for me. She had a salad with sliced pork on it, although her lack of appetite did not let her enjoy all that much of it. Hopefully she will start to feel better soon.
And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.
Thought For The Day – People who tolerate me on a daily basis, those are the real heroes.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Could she have RSV. It is around among people over 60.
That humorous sign is the second time I’ve come across Taco Bell in the first half hour of reading this morning…
That post puller looks like a good idea, good luck!
Hope Terry feels better soon! You answered a question for me this morning just with the photo of your gun. We have a 22 long barrel pistol we use for snake killing but also have a 32 magnum pistol similar in style to your 38. We were wondering if they made shotshell ammo for the 32 and I bet they do! Mike ran over a rattlesnake with our side by side just outside our back door last week, then chopped off it’s head. He asked me to find a box for the snake while so he could take it up into our fields to dispose of it. Mike took the RZR to the garage, I came outside with the box and danged if yet ANOTHER rattlesnake was not crawling toward the dead rattlesnake. I darted into the mudroom, grabbed the 22 and now there is another dead rattlesnake. Hate the things!