The barn is coming along and again we find ourselves ahead of schedule (I think……I hope!!!) with the things we need to do to be ready for the framing & roofing guys from Jersey. We have the board and batten materials to do the outside walls on the lower level, but need the T-111 siding for the top, flooring for the top and the 2x4’s for the framing on the top. All the roofing materials are here, including rafter materials, hangers, perlins, steel roofing, trim and ridge caps. At this point, I need to do exact positioning of the floor joist beams, plate them there and cut the ends flush. We will then be ready to put the steps up into the stairwell opening and start the flooring of the loft and office. After getting to that point, we might start framing out the loft and office walls. We will check with the Jersey boys first though.
Today is supposed to be a rain day and it’s starting to look like one. I hate to give up a day, but we need the rain to bring the water table back up to normal. Our pond is about 12” lower than usual. It is also not good for the fish when the water stops flowing, because they have a hard time with the diminished oxygen level in the water. We will have to pull cords and run a pump to create bubbles and help replace the oxygen usually created by moving water. Last year, we had a problem with the fish coming to the house and carrying buckets of water back to the pond, which they filled out of the garden hose, just so they would have some water in their pond. Thatwas when we were in the middle of the drought and the pond was almost 24" lower than normal. The fish really start to look pale (loose their coloring & stripes along their sides) when the oxygen level drops in the water. They also get very sluggish……as would I, if I were asphyxiated too! I’msure a good day of rain would take care of all this and return everything to a healthy, happy, natural state.
Yesterday Sweet Vicki got a little eager to do too much and had some back and leg pain last evening. I was constantly telling her about not overdoing it and that helped to stifle some of her activities, but she is a little head strong and very independent and will do as she will do! I think she now knows and understands that the mind continues to want to go when the body just can’t do it. It reminds me of a little kid, prancing along, saying “come on, come on, lets hurry” while the decrepit old man limps along, puffing, trying to move faster as he says “ok, I’m hurrying”. The actual agenda’s are too far apart now. If you try to keep up with the mind, the body pays. I know because I’ll go like a barn on fire one day and then crash the next. This is what happened yesterday. I hustled all day Thursday to get as much done with the loader as I could, then crashed yesterday. We didn’t even make it to Rich & Robin’s for Friday night dinner. I hope they know how tired and sore I was and understand I needed to crash. I think it was good for Vick too. She would have been in a lot more pain if we had gone. Today she will be better and won’t care to do as much, and then she won’t ache tonight.
There was a blood curdling squawk and then a scream-like noise that could be heard for 10 city blocks, as the rest of the chickens and ducks began to squawk as if a busload of foxes just arrived at the brooding house where a McChickies sign hung over the door. The dogs chimed in and the neighbors came running like the Amish farmers did when Farmer Lapp rang the bell in the movie “Witness“. I was taken aback as I snoozed in the Lazy boy couch recliner in the living room and Vicki was watching The Beverly Hillbillies on TV. I jumped to attention and started to run before I was fully awake, expecting to find a knife stuck in Vicki’s back and a burglar ready to do me in, but before I could protect her or myself, I fell headlong over the dog that had jumped and started running also. As I picked myself off the floor and continued looking bewildered, Vicki screamed “It came from the hen house!” and I started running again……this time watching where I was going. When I arrived at the hen house……all the birds were standing at the open door looking in as if they were a mob of city pedestrians that gather at the site of a murder and just gawk at everything . As I pushed past the mob of chickens and ducks peering into the hen house, I saw a hen leaning against the wall, her head laying upon her outstretched wing which was supporting her weight as she leaned against the wall and nesting box……her other wing slowly fanning air across her face and waddle, giving one the impression she had or possibly was going to faint. I finally got the picture of what had happen and why she had squawked and screamed such a blood curdling scream. Just look at this egg! It has to be 3½” Long!!
The end!
Well this morning is another day of improvement for Vicki. She is able to traverse the steps and walk further and further each day and sleeps every night, almost all night long with little or no pain at all. Now the challenge is to keep her from overdoing it since she has waited so long for the pain to subside. You know she is feeling better, because she sat outside yesterday, on a pillow, on the John Deere garden tractor 
as I placed beams on the barn with the skid steer. She was my eyes as I was busy maneuvering beams on the top of the posts and rails. Now today when we went to Rite-Aid to pick up her two prescriptions and renew mine for my blood pressure prescription, we had to go to GNH and she bought a new Dewalt heavy-duty 12, double-bevel sliding compound miter saw on a beautiful table. I might add at this time that she is the “Tool Lady”………..just like Tim Taylor on “Home Improvements”…….. I always have to drag her out of the tool section in every store we go into. She would stay and drool over every tool in every isle if I didn’t yank her outta there. 
We made monumental headway to the barn today! We got all the beams up except the last 3 short ones on the outside which I can do anytime. Tomorrow, after Vicki’s dr. appointment, I will start to position the beams, lock them into place and cut the ends off flush, open up the stairwell to place the steps into it and be ready to install the upstairs floor. We are now checking to see if rough cut plank is going to be cheaper than plywood for the floor. Anyway, we will be doing the floor next or the board and batten around the bottom or both at the same time since we have the lumber here. The bottom line is this…… we are on schedule again and will be ready when Matt and Mark come on June 27th.
The last two nights Vicki has been able to sleep the entire night…. the night before that, she slept ¾ of the night. I think we have turned the corner and she is on the mend! Dr. Lee is convinced we should treat this with rest and maintain correct position of the affected disc with minor adjustments as the healing process takes place over the next few weeks. The important thing is to keep the disc in perfect alignment while everything heals so it is perfectly positioned where it should be when the healing is complete. The inflammation is decreasing and the pain associated with the inflammation obviously decreases proportionately. That is evidenced by Vicki’s ability to walk, still slightly guarded, but at least now she can walk. Now we must make sure she doesn’t over do it since she is feeling better and is raring to go. The barn, sitting out there……uncompleted……… beckons, along with the animals, flowers, fishing and everything else dear to her heart that she would rather be doing than lying on a couch watching TV. I must constantly remind her of the following equation: 1 wrong move = reversal to day 1 and a restart from zero all over again. We are two weeks into this healing process of a total 5 weeks or so……..we can’t go back and start all over for a stupid mistake now….. the summer will be gone if we do that! So I watch her….and I remind her!!!!!
We went to Dr. Lee this afternoon and he gently adjusted Vicki’s back at the L5 disc which is herniated, setting on the nerve bundle which is causing the severe pain. This now looks like the 2nd week of the 4 to 5 week healing process for this classic injury. Vick is now happy that it is a classic injury experienced by 85% of the adult American population and not a mystery pain that no one can find the cause of. She has the same pain……but now she knows why and will deal with it. Before…….who knew…..it could have been cancer or chronic spinal disease, etc., etc. 
Ever wonder why people place demands on you when you owe them nothing? You're barely in their lives....seldom do they call you or offer any help..... yet they demand you give them what they would never think of giving you! Strange how people justify their thoughts and actions. Stranger yet that they think you will forever tolerate them as they continue to blindly place their demands. 
Took Vicki to Coxsackie to the EmUrgentCare clinic along route 9W. They gave Vicki a shot of Toradol, which did absolutely nothing for her. They also gave her two prescriptions. One was for more Toradol tablets and one for Lyrica, which is a nerve medicine. We dropped the prescriptions off at the Greenville RiteAid, where we went through the drive thru window, and told them we would go home and eat lunch, then come back to pick up them up. We pulled in to the drive thru window at 5:02 and the window was closed……which prompted me to go to the prescription counter which was also closed. They closed at 5:00 pm and although the pharmacist was still there, they would not give me Vicki’s filled prescriptions which were sitting in a pickup box behind the counter. Greenville is filled with more asses than a public toilet, so tonight, Vicki tries to sleep without her pain medication again, because we were 2 minutes late at the pharmacy. They didn’t post an early quit at the drive through window or have the decency to mention it when they collected the prescriptions or the payment for them earlier. We will finish our current business with them tomorrow morning and then never go there again. There are other places to spend our money outside of Greenville. We originally wanted to support local businesses, but if the businesses cannot serve us, why should we support them. We’ll live to hear them complain that no one from Greenville shops here, they go elsewhere.