Relative Something

I have a new appreciation for the road work signs that announce a “Low Shoulder.” We have almost 1600ft of low shoulder up and down the length of our new asphalt driveway. At one point I had visions of attacking the project with a vengeance to get all the edges finished in as short a time as possible.

Now I am thinking about doing small sections at a time and letting the completion drag out to as long as it takes. Preferably before we reach days of freezing temperatures.

Yesterday, I worked to fix the edging at the two turnouts of the loop around the hay shed. I got about one and a half done.

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The gravel of the base layer that remains visible beyond the asphalt has dried and gotten rock hard already, making it a struggle to scrape up and relocate. It would be great if we could simply rake the small rocks up against the asphalt edge without needing to muscle through breaking them loose from concrete first.

A quick onset of fatigue is one of the reasons I’m now thinking it will be accomplished in small portions over a long period of many weeks. I blame the unseen insect that stung me in the back yesterday for stealing my motivation to power through and get a lot done.

It’s funny how I can stoically maintain my poise while being stuck by a needle when getting a shot at the clinic but when that burning sensation of a sting hits while walking near the barn my arms start flailing, tools go flying, gloves get violently shaken off while high-stepping and wailing, hat and glasses get unceremoniously tossed, and shirt comes flying off.

It wasn’t clear whether whatever stung me was inside the shirt or out but I knew having the shirt in my hand instead of wearing it would give me something to slap my back with to address the pain and hopefully thwack any possible insect that still happened to be in the vicinity.

I don’t blame Delilah and the horses for staring at me like they were seeing a world class tantrum spectacle of epic proportion. The evil creature got me low on the back side of my shoulder where it is impossible to reach.

Poise was not an option.

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