Pain, planning around the weather

Yesterday I was in so much pain that it was hard to concentrate. There are odd times that I go through these bouts of severe pain in my lower back, often without any identifiable event that could have caused the increase in pain, but for this pain I can track it back to carrying a bag of feed on my shoulder from the shop to the well house. I did that because there was only one bag to carry, and it seemed the fastest way to get the bag to it destination. Not a wise decision and I paid for it. I am far better this morning, but that little episode of pain was a quick lesson in not challenging my abilities beyond what I am currently able to accomplish – which seems to be diminishing far more quickly than I anticipated. To help mitigate the pain this morning I got out the TENS unit and put the pads on my back. One of the advantages of working from home since I will not wear the unit to work. Surprisingly, the unit is now once again functioning properly. When I last used it, it would not work on the TENS mode but only on the massage mode. The TENS is far better for providing relief to my aching back.

Since Mama had gone to Muenster to get feed yesterday evening, I was not looking forward to moving fifteen or more bags of feed from the back of the truck to the pallet in the shop where we store the feed when she got home with the load, but Mama was thinking ahead. She had the feedstore put the bags on a pallet so that I could use the tractor to move the lot in one trip. It required me swapping implements on the tractor front loader, but that is a simple task. So, I swapped the bucket for the pallet forks, moved the pallet of feed into the shop and then swapped back to the bucket. All that took me about fifteen minutes – and I saved my back a lot of potential strain. Thank you, Mama.

Since the forecast if for a lot of rain beginning tomorrow and continuing through next week, I am planning on looking into the hives today. I would like to check the progress the bees have made in drawing out the comb in the honey supers. In one hive I put frames of Permacomb, a plastic equivalent to drawn out comb. In that honey super the bees can begin immediately to fill the comb with honey. I am hoping to get more than one full honey super out of that hive, but I am not sure if that will happen or not. I printed off a blog about harvesting honey so that Mama and I could study on it before we attempted it and the author, who has only four hives as well, stated that he often gets fifteen gallons of honey from his hives. That would be encouraging. I am looking at getting at least the minimum equipment Mama and I need on hand to collect our first honey. That’s exciting.

This evening we will move Midas back into the paddock with Julian and hopefully get the little does back into the paddock with their mommies. That will simplify the feeding next week and ensure all our livestock have a dry place to stay during the rainy week. We are forecast to get over four inches through the week. That would be a huge blessing since many of our tanks and ponds are very low, but I do not know what effect it will have on the guided fishing trip Pastor and I are supposed to go on next Friday. Sometime through the week, I will contact the guide for an update. Rescheduling should not be a problem since both the Pastor and I are pretty flexible but I do not want to miss the opportunity to see Lake Bridgeport from the perspective of a professional guide. Knowing his go-to places on the Lake will be very helpful. Many people go out and second the day fishing coming home with very little to show for their efforts, our pastor included. A free scouting lesson will be put to god use.

Saturday afternoon is the graduation at Bible Baptist Translators Institute. It is always sad to see our BBTI attendees graduate and move on with their lives, often hitting the deputation trail. We have had three couples and two singe students from BBTI with us in church for the entire year. When they move on, they will be sorely missed, but that is the way of life at BBTI and as much as we know it will happen each year, it is still sad to repeat the process every time we must. That graduation and the lunch following will take a chunk out of our time Saturday, but we always enjoy participating and supporting BBTI.

How heavy the rain is on Saturday will determine what else I can get done that day, but I can always find something to do.