After being up for 23 or so hours, then getting less than 3 hours sleep and staying up for another 15, you’d think I’d have been able to stay in bed for a while this morning. Sadly, I was awake before 4:00. I’d heard this not sleeping thing happens when you get old, and while I never really thought it would happen to me, it appears this is just how my life will be from now on – which is probably OK, since I’m not that far from the ‘eternal sleep.’ Not that I’m looking to check out anytime soon, of course.

I spent a pretty fair amount of time in the tractor seat yesterday, for the first time in a while. On the orders of the wife, I’m in the process of removing what was once a decorative pond, but is now mostly a stink hole. The first order of business was to try and get the liner pulled up (or at least sufficiently shredded to pieces to allow it to drain) without rolling the tractor into it and drowning. I’d hate to die on a Saturday with a ton of sick leave and vacation time on the books.

Unfortunately, I feel quite horrible about all the frogs. Here I come in and destroy the only world they’ve ever known, and they just hop away – terrified – looking for a place to hide under the ever decreasing water with their little eyes blinking up and me, wondering why. It was bad enough pulling them from the swimming pool skimmer, but to actively seek out and destroy them, well, as I said, I felt awful. I only hope they’ve managed to relocate – though there isn’t actually any water nearby (which begs the question, “where the hell do they come from?” I mean, I dunno about where you live, but here, if you get a little rain in the spring, you wind up with a puddle full of pollywogs).

Anyhow, I shredded and tore and filled what I could, and hopefully the water will have diminished by some time today. Problem is, everything is clay around here – that shit is like cement and doesn’t exactly drain rapidly. It also doesn’t come off your boots, pants, tire treads (you do not wanna get your tires buried in this stuff), or anything else that comes in contact with it.

Yesterday was a cold(ish), cloudy, windy, damp (muddy) day, so, between that and the exhaustion (not only from lack of sleep, but also from spending Friday night more or less hollering as loud as I could manage), I’m sure I’m ripe for pneumonia or a sinus infection (or at least a cold). So I guess I better start pounding the Oil of Oregano.

There’s no time in the budget for being sick – or sleeping.