Been awhile, eh? The last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful. I'm not about to squeeze everything on one post, so it may take several to get everyone up to speed. So let's get started...

First question you may have is why am I up at 3am? Two weekends ago, I was helping my Dad out on the farm. After his surgery, he can't do as much and he need to get the cows out to another pasture. He also has crops in the field so we (I) had to put up some electric fence and clean up around the fences that were already up (FYI: electric fences don't work if there are weeds, vines, small trees, etc., growing around them because if they touch the wire it grounds the fence and big moo-moos have no incentive to stay away).

Putting up he new fence wasn't bad. Before Dad's surgery, he had brush-hogged a lane through the woods. I just drove steel posts, put up the wire and stretched it. Of course, nothing was grounding out the wire, because I put up the fence where the wasn't anything to touch it. So, again, that was the easy part.

Next came walking the fence line and removing any brush grounding the wire. I would like to take some time here and mention that it was about 96 degrees those two days. And, where the fence I put up was in the woods, the fence line that was already up was in the wide open spaces, along gravel roads, that placed me into the path of the ever relentless sun. So, walking along the fence with my Dad driving the truck (he wasn't even supposed to be doing that yet, but he felt guilty that I was working and he wasn't), pruning shears in one hand and a dull corn knife (a butter knife would have been sharper and more effective) in the other, I wacked, cut and beat into submission, all of the undergrowth.

Did I mention that part of that undergrowth included poison ivy? Wack, cut and beat the undergrowth may have been, but the poison ivy was not giving up without a fight (although I didn't know how good of a fight it as putting up until a couple of days later). My sweet concerned Dad would say (after I was up to my neck in it), "look out son... that's poison ivy there." Now, I had long pants on, a t-shirt and gloves. I thought I was pretty safe. And besides, I haven't had poison ivy since I was a kid and I've camped, hiked, etc., so I thought there may be a chance that it wouldn't effect me if it did come into contact with my skin.

Well, to make a long story long, I had poison ivy and bug bites. The poison ivy was so bad that I would wake up scratching. It spread from my arms to my hands. I thought that after a week it would go away, but last weekend it was so bad I couldn't stand it. Tuesday, I went to the doctor. He gave me a shot of and prescription for prednisolone. Hence, no sleep ('til {guitar riff} Brooklyn) last night or tonight. I awoke from my blissful slumber Tuesday night at 3:30am and fell back to sleep at 5:00am. Tonight, I am WIDE awake!

Good news...my poison ivy isn't bothering me at all.