Hollowed

Hi everyone,

Today's been a bit of a roller-coaster in my world.  The day started as a true "I'm not moving till the sun gets a bit more enthusiastic about its work" one.  But, eventually it did and I rose like a solar-powered zombie.

The first bit of the day was spent putting the refitted tyres back on Michael's backhoe.  For something so big the tolerances on the studs were very fine and do the work was kind of fiddly.  We scurried out the door this morning and so I didn't get to take my usual tablet till coffee time about 10:30, by which time the blues were biting a bit.  It's great how quick it works though (I appreciate there's probably some level of placebo effect at work here, but I'm not one to quibble results).

We've had about 15 large piles of fallen branches and scrap timber piled up over the road paddock for over 12 months waiting for an opportunity to burn them without setting fire to the whole district.  As it's cold and dry at present this seemed like a good time to do it.  How dry is it?  This is one of our shallower dams today - well into winter: 

Sigh.  We need rain badly.  Anyway, we got 10 of the fires going and then spent a few  hours monitoring them, stopping them from getting away and generally not letting anything bad happen. Satisfying if undemanding work.

We were able to leave the fires to burn out by about 2:30pm and went in for lunch.  It was at that time that I heard from the ex that Grace had suffered some type of allergic reaction and was in hospital having an antihistamine drip and steroids.  She sent me a picture and the poor little angel looked all swollen and miserable, like she'd gone 5 rounds with Floyd Mayweather.  I've since been jn touch again, and she's much better this morning (their time).  I'm beyond happy to hear that, because seeing her looking so sick and knowing she was so miserable left me feeling hollowed out too, like a gutted fish.  I can't really explain it: just a feeling of being not whole at all while she was sick.

With that in mind, it was kind of a relief to head over to Michael's farm for the last few hours of daylight and strip the corrugated iron off the posts in his sheep yards, as a first step to converting to cattle yards.  It was good to concentrate on the task of extracting screws with a power drill and stacking the iron as it came off.

By the time we were done the sun was well down and we headed back. Was hoping to run today but will make it up at the gym through the week.  

Not much else to note.  Hope things feel good for you all!